Caring Hands Touch

Coping Strategies

Reading List

Links

WCRC has worked with many women prior to surgery with many types of cancer. Any type of surgery is psychologically, emotionally, physically and spiritually challenging. There are several advance preparatory actions that you may consider to help deal with the tension on many levels. These tips have been collected over time working with women and their partners during this difficult time. If you have any additional ideas, please feel free to write, call or e-mail us with your creative ideas.

First and foremost, be gentle with yourself during this time. Give yourself time, comfort and nurturing. Do things that relax you during the time before your surgery, such as massage, healing touch, energy work, boosting your immune system through nutritional and vitamin intake prior to surgery. Research has found that people who receive massage before and after surgery have faster recoveries.

Have your house cleaned (by someone else!) so that when you return from surgery you are not looking at a mess or tempted to try to clean a dirty house.

Consider a pre-surgery ritual. There are many ideas you may have for a private ritual or a ritual with close friends and family members. There are people available who can assist you in planning a ritual. Call WCRC to get names and numbers of someone in your community available who can assist you in planning a ritual. Some clients have done such rituals as:

• Creating a body cast of your body and painting a shield of healing on the cast.
• Holding a party using humor, poetry, singing and rituals to figuratively say goodbye to your breast or ovaries or uterus, etc.
• Having tasteful photographs taken of your body prior to surgery
• Holding a ritual where all your supporters give you affirmations of healing, caring and love. You may audiotape these affirmations and then use this tape during surgery on a personal headset.
• Having a healer work with you and your supporters to help strengthen your body prior to surgery.
• Having a spiritual director lead a prayer or meditation for you and your supporters.

If you are able to work it out with your surgeon and hospital AHEAD of the scheduled surgery date, you may be able to bring some things into the operating room to help you cope with the surgery. You may be allowed to bring a personal headset into surgery so that you can listen to soothing music, healing affirmations, guided meditations or whatever would comfort you during the surgery. Second, you may be allowed to have a "Healing Touch" practitioner, an acupuncturist or other healer actually in the operating room with you or in your hospital room following surgery to work with your energy field while you are under and recovering from anesthesia. Some research has reported that this has made recovery times shorter, kept blood pressures lower and allowed people to use less pain medication during the post-operative period.

Set up a phone tree prior to your surgery. Choose one person to call after surgery and have that person report to the rest of your friends/family. Alternatively, have one person use voice mail to give daily updates of your condition, so that people can check on how you are dong without calling you directly.

Take up the offers of your friends and family members to help. Ask them to:

• Write thank-you notes for you,
• Read books about your type of cancer and give you summaries about that book,
• Set up a coordinated food delivery system (each supporter can bring a meal for you each night for as long as is needed after surgery),
• Feed your pet, water your plants or collect your mail.

 
Women's Cancer Resource Center
4604 Chicago Ave. So.
Minneapolis, MN 55407
612-822-4846 or 877-892-6742
612-822-4784 (fax)
wcrc@wcrcmn.org