Ask For Help

April 12, 2010

Sometimes you just can’t do it, get it, learn it, or be you’re best solely by yourself. After a cancer diagnosis, people react in many different ways. Maybe you became a voracious learner - an expert in your particular cancer, seeking information in every place imaginable, trying non-traditional approaches, nutritional supplements and joining every support group or online community. Or perhaps you heard only what you needed to from your clinicians, then placed the cancer in a file in your mind marked “do not open”. Of course, you might land somewhere in-between.

However you are managing your disease, at one or several points in your treatment and survivorship you may find you simply can’t do it alone. Here is where the self care phrase “Ask for Help” comes from. It’s not a reflection of a weak character or being needy; it’s an honest request for the specific support you need to work toward regaining your physical and mental balance.

Your circle of caring family and friends is the first place to start to seek support, for a ride to your treatment, someone to share a cup of tea with or massage your back. There are many other resources available to you, and you are here this minute reading a blog on one of them. Reach out. Even private, self sufficient, confident people need a hand now and then.

To think of it in another way, if you wanted to learn to play piano, you’d engage a piano teacher, right? If you wanted to lose weight and gain muscle, you would work with a fitness professional, right? If you wanted to spend more time with your grandchildren and less time taking care of your home, you might hire a landscaper, or house cleaner, right?

The same goes for this chapter in your life. Asking for Help is a smart thing; it can get you to where you want to be, faster and with less stress.