Although I wrote the following with cancer treatment in mind, many of these tips can apply to any kind of medical treatment.

• Realize that a cancer diagnosis and treatment changes everything about life as you once knew it. A cancer patient can become easily frustrated over things that never bothered him/her previously. Emotions can easily surface, as the patient is having to deal with a life-threatening illness, side effects of treatment, side effects of the cancer itself, changes in work status and routine, changes in physical appearance, financial stress, loss of social activities, loss of physical capabilities, etc.