Caring for a Loved One with Cancer

Three Caregivers Share Their Journey

When someone you love receives a cancer diagnosis, it sends ripples through every part of your life. When you’re the caregiver, the weight of the diagnosis may feel like it’s sitting squarely on your shoulders.

Debby, Pat and Tammy each understand the ups and downs of caregiving. Their stories reflect the challenges of the role, its blessings, and a few lessons they learned along the way.

Care Close to Home

When Tammy’s mother was diagnosed with urethral cancer — a rare form of the disease — she began treatment at St. Elizabeth. As a nurse educator, Tammy knew the importance of expert care. But as a daughter, she saw firsthand how powerful it was to receive that care in their own community.

“We didn’t have to travel for the second half of Mom’s treatment,” Tammy says. “When you’re not spending hours on the road, you can stay grounded. That matters.”

Tammy and her family had started care at the Cancer Center in Edgewood. But when the Dearborn Cancer Center opened, they were able to finish her mother’s care close to home, a change that made a real difference.

“Especially with radiation, where you’re going every day, sometimes even twice a day, travel adds stress and eats up your time,” she says. “Having this in our backyard was life-changing.”

Being able to manage care locally gave Tammy and her mom more time and energy to spend with each other, and less time worrying about logistics.

Pat’s husband, Ted, also benefited from care at St. Elizabeth. He was one of the first patients at the Yung Family Cancer Center.

“It was very cool to be able to walk into that new facility and be greeted by all of these wonderful people whose sole purpose was helping the cancer journey be less difficult,” Pat says. “It’s a special place.”

Hope and Options at Every Step

Ted received his cancer diagnosis of glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the world shutting down, he needed surgery right away.

Ted’s care team explained that specialists at the Mayo Clinic could offer expert insights into his type of brain cancer. Ted and Pat traveled to Minnesota, where Ted had surgery before returning home to continue treatment in Edgewood.

“St. Elizabeth was amazing at giving us options,” Pat says. “We were never on our own. They were here for us every step of the way.”

While caring for her mother, Tammy remembers learning that the care team reached out to other health systems to ensure they were doing everything possible. “As a healthcare provider myself, it was unique to me,” Tammy says, “knowing that they were willing to talk to other hospitals and cancer centers about possible treatments. My mom’s form of cancer accounts for less than 1% of all cancers, so there’s not much that’s known about it.”

Spiritual and Emotional Support

Debby’s and Steve’s kids were still young when he was diagnosed with advanced melanoma, an aggressive form of skin cancer. Debby recalls the difficulty of balancing caregiving with being a mom.

“Sometimes we need a little encouragement to lean into the support needed,” she said, “especially when it feels unfamiliar at first.” That might mean joining a cooking class, sitting with a chaplain and talking about your struggles or simply trying something that helps you feel less alone.

“I’m a chaplain myself,” Debby says. “But going through all this alongside my husband, I found that I wasn’t immune to those intense emotions that come along with cancer, or the doubts it creates in you. The experience taught me to be more aware of what others might need and the power of presence in someone’s life.”

Tammy agrees that receiving support from others was a critical component of caregiving.

“Strength does seem to come naturally when you’re taking care of a loved one,” she says, “but it’s hard to be strong every day. We have to pull on the strength of people around us and gain strength from that support.”

Pat describes Ted’s doctor’s appointments as warm and welcoming as a family reunion.

“Yes, it’s a doctor’s appointment, and sometimes it wasn’t the best news, but you always felt cared for and loved and like you were at home,” she says. “We built relationships here.”

The St. Elizabeth Difference

Debby, Pat and Tammy agree that while being a caregiver is one of life’s hardest roles, St. Elizabeth helps lighten the load through the compassion, attentiveness and dignity they show in caring for their patients.

“We had to travel five-and-a-half hours away to get my husband the treatment he needed,” she says.

Now, Debby says she’s grateful that more families can get expert cancer care close to home in the community they’re familiar with, where they can rest in their own homes, be surrounded by their own support systems and keep their lives and their kids’ lives moving as normally as possible.