Understanding Cancer's Do's and Don't's

Parents of cancer kids often find it hard to talk frankly to family and friends. They find that some friends can't understand their situation and never call, they find that someone they hardly knew before becomes their best friend and helper. Family and friends in turn sometimes just don't know the right thing to say to or do for a cancer family. The following is a collection of posts on this topic.

Some ideas of things to do for cancer families

Clean their house for when they come home from the hospital.
Get them a gift certificate for video rentals.
Buy CDs or cassette tapes for the child undergoing chemotherapy. Perhaps even get them a Walkman or Discman if they do not have one. Or, an MP3 player.
Puzzle books, reading books, and activity books, especially for the siblings. Many parents could use help with the other children.
A night or day of babysitting.

Messages from cancer families
(What they want to say to you but probably don't.)

Don't take "no, we don't need any help" from a family as their final response...ask again. Don't say, "Well, call if you need something" - we probably won't call. We are not used to needing help from others and do not know (1) that we need it and (2) how to say yes. If you really mean it when you say you want to help, you must come up with your own ideas... such as "I'd like to mow your grass" or "I will babysit....(the younger sibling if any) this week-end" or "I will be snow-blowing your drive-way for the season." or "Let me stay with you son overnight at the hospital so you can get some rest." And if you make such an offer and we refuse, we may be refusing because we really don't need help like that at the moment, but please call back in a week or two and try again!