Things you can do when cancer is your diagnosis

Cancer patients learn a lot as they move along from diagnosis through treatment. Here are a few tips that might help other patients.

• Record your meetings with all of your doctors. Three out of four of my doctors had no problem with that. It was amazing, listening four days after meeting with the surgeon, to hear what I had missed.

• Get copies of your diagnosis, especially when the tumour has been removed.

• Call the Canadian Cancer Society's helpline. It's free, and confidential, and the woman I got walked me through all the terms on my diagnosis sheet, and what they meant. She also gave me some good questions to ask at my following appointment.

• Get a calendar that you can stick on the wall and write all your appointments in it, the date of your diagnosis, and other details along the timeline of your treatment. Trust me, your brain goes away.

•  I didn't ask for a copy of the information sheet that I had to fill in the first time I was in hospital. That was a mistake. I ended having to come up with pretty detailed information at least three times at three different places.

• I realized, eventually, that a list of all and any drugs I was taking, including vitamins, was asked for almost everywhere I went. So make a list, duplicate it, and tuck it in your wallet.

• I ended up emailing a colleague who was going through a similar diagnosis. Everyone is different, but sometimes if someone is going through it before you, they have tips too, and words of support.

• I hugged a lot of people. I also took some up on offers of help with drives and walks. People generally want to help. Let them.