Being proactive

I kind of assumed that if something like cancer happened to us I would be an awesome researcher and would find all sorts of alternative treatments and be really active in fighting it. But from the very beginning I wasn't able to google or look up anything to do with Tahu's cancer. It was too incredibly bad. And on paper it absolutely is but Tahu is a unique case, he's not the normal person to get this cancer and so when I look up stuff about this cancer it looks terrible but it isn't Tahu. So we decided quite early on to go with the traditional treatment for at least this round. To give it a go and see how it went and not doing any crazy diets or pills or anything. And we have found our medical team so amazing and the treatment has gone well (as far as we know) and so we are happy with this decision. 

There is one thing we did though and that was be "proactive". We use that word a lot and it feels great to not just take the treatment and hope for the best but to not get too hung up in trying everything out there right away. So the way we are being proactive is in 3 parts. 

1. We had a physio recommended to us who works with those undergoing cancer treatment. It's at Physio NZ and is called Pink and Steel. Pink is for women, Steel is for men. We were able to get some funding for Tahu's first 3 treatments and then our insurance covers some of the next few and then we will just cover it ourselves as it has been so good. It focuses on keeping your fitness, mindfulness, managing your weight and other things that are really effected when you're dealing with cancer, especially when you're young. For example, they taught him exercises he can do in bed if he's too sick to get up (that seemed genius to me!). They get him biking and doing steps and they've taught him pilates. The pilates he does most days at home and he notices a big difference in how he feels when he does it. 

So the first thing we did was get him into physio specifically for his situation to keep him active physically and mentally. 

2. Within a few weeks Tahu, for very obvious reasons, started to struggle mentally. He had a panic attack and we handled it ok but I called and had him referred for support that same morning. We had an amazing lady come out to see us the next week who is a psychologist (a social worker came too and she was amazing too). They stayed for 2 hours and talked with us and immediately Tahu started seeing the psychologist once a week. Tahu is really good at talking with me and others but it helps so much to talk to a professional who knows what they're talking about and who isn't emotionally connected to him in some way. She's amazing at what she does, even if he cries the whole session she still makes sure it ends with him leaving feeling great and ready for the next week. 

I have also started seeing her colleague and while I've only had one session so far it was incredibly helpful and will definitely see her again. 

We knew from the beginning that what we are facing this year is pretty exceptional and we want to be the best parents we can be and to get through this together and that it would be naive to think we could do this on our own. 

Seeing a psychologist is the second thing we did to be proactive. There's no shame in it and we have recommended it to a number of others already because how do you get through this kind of thing on your own? You need help and the shame should only be in pretending like this isn't really tough and you can "man up" and do it without help. 

3. The Cancer Society runs a number of support groups. Now we aren't really support group people but we thought we would give them a go once and if we didn't like it then we didn't have to go again. This is something we teach Knox all the time (try something once, if you don't like it don't do it again. Mostly with food!) so it made sense to take our own advice! Tahu went to a support group for those with brain cancer and found it really good and loved talking to others like him. We found out I could have gone along so for the next one I went too and we both loved it. There's a different topic/speaker every time so we kind of pick and choose which ones we go to but when we go it's always good. 

There's one for the carers (that's me) and I will go next time and see how it is but I've heard really good things about it and I know talking to others in my position really helps so I think it's worth a try. 

So the third thing we did was go to support groups. 

This threefold attack (physio, psychologist and support groups) has worked really well for us and it's something we talk about with others a lot. Obviously those dealing with cancer but really it's anyone going through a crisis of some sort. You probably won't get all 3 options every time but seeing someone to talk about what's happening and talking to others who "get" it is vital in working through whatever the crisis is. Doing it alone is not going to work.