CANCER TREATMENT: DEALING WITH YOUR MEDICAL TEAM
Depending on the type and stage of your cancer, your diagnosis may have been made very quickly following a referral by your GP to your local hospital, or you may have undergone a series of tests lasting some weeks before a firm diagnosis is reached. In both cases, you will have been through an extremely stressful experience and have been thrust into a medical world with which you are likely to be completely unfamiliar.
Studies have shown that men are less likely than women to visit their GP when they fall ill. As a result, you may have had infrequent contact with doctors in the past, and be unaccustomed to discussing and managing ill-health and dealing with the medical profession. In spite of this, you not only have to cope with the news of your cancer diagnosis, but also learn about your disease, learn your way around the unfamiliar territory of hospitals and clinics, learn how to talk to unfamiliar doctors about even the most intimate and distressing aspects of your illness, learn about your proposed treatment, learn a new vocabulary of medical terms and jargon … It would be a lot to ask of any person in normal circumstances, and yet it is a process which you have to come to terms with in a very short time.
This sounds extremely daunting and the learning curve is a steep one, but there are simple ways in which you can begin to feel more involved in the management of your cancer rather than falling prey to the passivity which many male (and female) patients fear. The key to this is communication with your medical team.
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