SEVEN THINGS I WISH I’D KNOWN EARLIER ABOUT CANCER SURVIVORSHIP

By Jessie Gruman

April 2, 2014

It is challenging, in the years following a cancer diagnosis, to assemble health care that protects us from the lingering effects of the disease and its treatment and that alerts us to a recurrence or new cancer. While all people who have had cancer need some basic monitoring, our histories and preferences suggest that survivorship care should be customized to meet our unique needs. But these days, many of us find ourselves cared for by clinicians who are not familiar with the basics of survivorship care, who don’t feel qualified to provide it or who are simply not interested in doing so.

For these reasons, and from my own experiences with treatment for five different kinds of cancer, I wrote Cancer Survivorship: What I Wish I’d Known Earlier. In these essays, I reflect on what I have discovered about getting good care following active cancer treatment and what I have learned from others’ experiences. I hope these reflections will help those who’ve been diagnosed with cancer live as long and as well as they can.

Original blog post by Jessie Gruman. Updated by the GW Cancer Institute June 2016.