A guide for caregivers
Your first week, what to say and what not to say, and looking after yourself.
If you are the one organising the reports, driving to appointments and holding everything together, this section is for you rather than for the patient. Two things are true at once: you are not the person who is ill, and this is happening to you too. The practical side of the job — mouth care, feeding, the medicine record — has an article of its own, "Caring for a patient at home".
The first week, practically
- Put every report in one folder, oldest at the back. Take it to every appointment.
- Write questions down as they occur to you, not just before an appointment.
- Bring someone else to the big conversations. Two people remember more than one.
- Decide early who tells the wider family, so the patient is not repeating the news twenty times.
Still being written
The rest of this guide — what to say and what not to say, how to talk to children at different ages, and looking after your own health through months of treatment — is being written with our counsellors.
Ask us instead
If the answer you need is not written down yet, ask a person. That is faster than waiting for us to publish it.