What is life like after a colon cancer diagnosis?
You’ve been diagnosed with colon cancer, so what comes next? It can be difficult to transition into being a patient. Make sure you’re prepared. You may not be able to do everything you’re used to for awhile. Author and survivor,Robin McGee discusses what life is like after a colon cancer diagnosis in this video.
To learn more about life after a colon cancer diagnosis watch “Newly Diagnosed Colon Cancer Patients: What to Do First?” with Dr. Mark Kozloff.
Video Transcripts
Robin McGee: Another thing that can be quite challenging is moving your identity away from being a person who is active and involved in your life to suddenly you have to navigate from that identity to being a patient and being an ebullient. For many of us, certainly for me, I have never ever been sick before in my life. I had only taken my five sick days my whole working life before having to take off two years for expensive cancer treatments, so it is a road that you are probably very likely going to have to negotiate your responsibilities, either your work responsibilities, your household responsibilities, elder care, child care, but it is important to start those conversations now perhaps with the person that your workplace is most familiar with, with your leave and so on, so you can know your options early, know early what you can expect by way of health insurance, long term disability, all of those kinds of things that you may require later on.