SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS RADIO) – June 6th is National Cancer Survivor Awareness Day, a day intended to celebrate and raise awareness about the challenges that people with a history of cancer face.
“I'd like to just take a moment to define what … cancer survivorship is,” said nurse practitioner Angela Laffan, who is the clinical lead for UCSF’s Cancer Survivorship and Wellness Institute.
A cancer survivor may be someone who has beaten a cancer diagnosis or someone who is living with cancer as a chronic illness. Some people may not even identify themselves with the term cancer survivor, Laffan told KCBS’ Bret Burkhart on this week’s episode of As Prescribed. “A cancer survivor [might be] someone who has cancer and has finished treatment or it might be somebody who has cancer and needs ongoing treatment,” she explained.
Laffan said care for cancer has improved dramatically, however patients who complete treatment are often still left dealing with long-term chronic illnesses and other challenges.
“The thing that we're not as good at is identifying and treating the things that people experience as a result of their cancer diagnosis or their cancer treatments,” she stated. “But we do know from research from people who have a cancer diagnosis that they continue to struggle for many, many years – either during their treatment or after their treatment is finished – with things like ongoing fatigue, sleep disturbances, developing other illnesses earlier than would be expected. And that's often a consequence of their treatments.”
A multi-faceted cancer survivorship program like the one at UCSF aims to take a broader look at what a patient deals with after beating cancer or living with a cancer diagnosis.
Providers evaluate how a patient is doing with their nutrition, exercise, sleep, and even their finances.
“We know that cancer can have a very big impact financially,” Laffan said. “So we really, when we meet with someone in our survivorship clinics, they're given a questionnaire and they're asked about all of these topics every time we meet them. That questionnaire really helps us prioritize what we want to speak about [that] day.”
Common issues cancer survivors deal with are anxiety and depression – especially related to worries about a recurrence of their illness.
“We have psycho-oncologists, so they're psychologists who actually see people just with a cancer diagnosis, and they work a lot with patients on strategies that they can use to help when people have that feeling of anxiety related to the cancer coming back,” the nurse practitioner explained. “The other thing that's really important is empowering patients so that they feel like they're doing everything they can within their power to help prevent the cancer coming back.”
By offering tools and guidance, Laffan said the program aims to empower patients with a feeling of control over reducing their risk of cancer. That can help decrease anxiety and eventually lead to a positive outlook for a happy and cancer-free future.