Can segmentation help cancer caregivers make better sense of their new work?

Can parsing the components of this new effort make your new work lighter, or at least clearer?

Here’s an observation, than an action recommendation.

Observation: Our emotional reactions - to cancer or other surprises or challenges - may be unitary, at least initially. New fear can cancel appreciation (e.g., of blessings, resources, or future opportunities). Anger (e.g., at new disease) often overwrites thoughtful consideration (e.g., of options). And angst typically blots out joy.

But cancer is a diverse experience. Hence the common wisdom that “it’s a roller coaster” of ups and downs for the patient. Similarly, molecular research reveals that individual tumors in breast cancer can be heterogeneous, containing portions that are both estrogen-expressing (“ER+”) structures and not, and both progesterone-expressing (“PR+”) and not, in the same cluster of cancer cells.

So perhaps you can ease your long haul of cancer caregiving by dividing, before you conquer.

Parsing is what our medical teams do, gathering and sifting data in their diagnostic and prognostic labors.

Likewise, there are separate desired and undesired piece-parts of cancer caregiving. Surgeons sever lost, versus save-able, flesh. Stem cell transplant teams first harvest out patient blood, before “apheresis” gear separates the components of blood and then culls those uber-cells, for freezing and later infusion into the patient, as shown below.



above: steady hands of veteran nurse setting up 2-pipes apheresis machine, to withdraw blood from the resting patient, using one of the fat lumens of a 2-headed central venous catheter, and then return the remainder of the blood via the second pipe after separating and saving the stem cell portion


above: the heart of a blood “apheresis” machine is the centrifuge, hidden inside the equipment’s cabinet; similarly, the process of cancer diagnosis and treatment includes segmenting before study and action

So, in our support for our cancer-patient loved ones, perhaps we’ll be more effective if we tease out our resilient strengths from our tangled confusion, our useful resources apart from our worries. And we can (and should) identify and deploy what we can do that the physicians, nurses, and other medical folks can’t.

Action Recommendation: We’re all given different gifts. Identity and deploy your special skills (your “secret sauce”).

Some folks are skilled listeners. People who are house-cleaners, carpool-drivers, paper-filers, playdate chaperones, or number-crunchers, and everyone else can all lend a hand. In recent years, “Internet-beaver” researchers have found distant but relevant resources for their loved ones. I found via Web research the physician-researcher in whose Phase II clinical trial my loved one is now patient #7.

Let’s all optimize our efforts and marshal our strengths, remembering: cancer: it’s surely a nasty thing, but it’s not a single thing.