How to Provide Care for a Loved One with Mesothelioma

It’s never easy navigating through a loved one’s hardships, especially in situations where you feel powerless. Fortunately, there are things that you can do to help support your loved one through hard times and provide much needed assurance—even when the hard time in question involves something as serious as a cancer diagnosis.

Learning about mesothelioma

Mesothelioma is a cancer that forms in the lungs, heart or stomach, and is caused by asbestos exposure. The cancer typically impacts the elderly, with symptoms usually taking over ten years to develop. A mesothelioma diagnosis can be a very frightening and major life event to happen to anyone, and can be just as frightening for caregivers when a loved one is diagnosed.

As a caregiver supporting your loved one who was diagnosed with mesothelioma, you will need to learn a bit about what this cancer is and how it can progress. First, you need to know what type of mesothelioma your loved one has. The three different types of mesothelioma cancers, pleural (lungs), peritoneal (abdomen) and pericardial (heart), will all come with different sets of symptoms and care routines.

After becoming familiar with the different ways that mesothelioma can impact someone, you should take the time to discern how far your loved one’s cancer has progressed. Learning what stage of mesothelioma they have will help you know how you can support them right away, and decide what their care plan might look like in the coming months. Just like with other forms of cancer, there are four stages of mesothelioma cancer. Stages are as followed:

Stage 1: The cancer is localized to the organ it began in and has not spread to any surrounding tissue or nodes
Stage 2: The cancer has spread, but is still localized to just one organ. In stage 2 the tumor has likely grown and may be impacting local lymph nodes
Stage 3: The cancer has spread to nearby organs and tissues of other organs. Most often, this means spreading from the lungs to the esophogas or stomach lining.
Stage 4: The cancer has spread to distant organs and lymph nodes through the bloodstream.

Knowing some baseline things about your loved one’s mesothelioma diagnosis will help you be able to provide better support and be a better caregiver.

Offer a helping hand

In addition to learning about your loved one’s diagnosis, you should also educate yourself on what kind of cancer treatment they’ll be receiving and what their care schedule might look like. Cancer patients will not be able to drive back and forth during their treatments and will need help both getting to appointments and returning afterwards. Some ways you can provide help include:

Offering rides when they need to receive treatment
Spending time with them while receiving treatment to keep them company
Bringing them something they want from home, such as a book or food, with the approval of the hospital

Helping your loved one work through their treatment is one way to be supportive, but you can also help them around the home as well, such as by offering to help them with chores. This can include:

Running errands
Grocery shopping
Chores around the house
Getting medicine or prescriptions
Helping cook dinner

Your loved one is likely dealing with fatigue from both mesothelioma and the treatments they are receiving, so helping take some responsibilities off of their plate could be a huge help. Along with fatigue, common symptoms include difficulty breathing and chest pain, so taking away any physically demanding duties is essential. There are a lot of tasks you can help with, so be sure to manage your time so you don’t experience any caregiver burnout. It’s important to still give yourself the time you need to be the best version of yourself.

Being emotionally available

Besides handling certain chores and tasks for your loved one, you’ll want to make sure you are supporting them on an emotional level as well. Start by being available for them and making sure to be empathetic of their recent life changes. This will help improve their emotional health as they begin treatment. However, make sure you aren’t being overbearing or saying empty statements like:

“I know what you’re going through.”
“If I could give you some advice…”
“I understand how you feel.”

Saying things like this can be annoying to your loved one, and if they lash out it could put a strain on your relationship over time. In the reality of the situation, the best thing to do is let them come to you when they feel the need. You don’t have to try and pull anything out of them that they don’t want to share at that moment. When comforting your loved one, try and say things like:

“I’m here for you whenever you want to talk.”
“I’m sorry about your diagnosis. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.”

This way, your loved one knows you are there for them and they will be more comfortable coming to you when they need emotional support.

Managing the stress

In addition to helping them around the house and being there for emotional support, just simply planning time with them is a great way to help manage their stress with their diagnosis. Doing simple activities like playing board games, watching movies and anything else they may find fun to help keep their mind in a positive light.

You won’t be able to get them out of the house much, so bringing some activities home to your loved one is a great way to reduce stress and keep their mind and body busy. Besides board games and passive activities, light-impact workouts and exercises specifically for lung-cancer patients is a great way to get your loved one up and moving.

As always, make sure to give your loved one time to manage stress on their own. Just like with being emotionally there for them, you do not want to over-do it with activities.

You’re capable of making a difference

It is okay to recognize that the diagnosis not only affects your loved one, but you as well. Don’t be hard on yourself when helping your loved one through their time with cancer. To find ways of support for being a cancer caregiver and to help to guide you through the process, visit Cancer.org.