PROSPER with a BIG FOLDER – Organising Your Story

In this episode of PROSPER Natural Cancer CARE, Carla emphasises the importance of information and the patient's story in cancer care. Drawing inspiration from Professor Kerryn Phelps' book, "The Cancer Recovery Guide," Carla encourages patients to create a BIG folder containing all their medical records, histopathology, care team details, current and past treatment schedules, diets and lots of other metrics from the diagnosis and throughout their cancer experience.

Carla discusses the significance of having organised information readily available, including blood tests. She explains how a neat spreadsheet of blood test results can provide valuable insights into a patient's health status, allowing for more focused discussions during consultations. By tracking trends in biochemistry, such as liver function, kidney function, white cell count, inflammation and blood glucose levels, Carla can better understand priorities and make informed treatment suggestions.

Listeners are encouraged to create their own BIG folder and Carla provides guidance on the type of information to include. Additionally, she teases the next episode, where she'll delve into the Pathology of Interest and the power of understanding one's own pathology, whether or not they have cancer.

Next Episode Preview: Join Carla in the next episode as she explores the Pathology of Interest and discusses the power of understanding one's own pathology, regardless of whether they have cancer.

Find PROSPER Natural Cancer CARE on Instagram @prosper.cancer.care or visit www.prospercancercare.co.

For more information or to get in touch, connect with Carla on Instagram @carlawrenn or visit www.carlawrenn.com.

Disclaimer: This podcast is intended to be informational only and represents the opinion of the participants, but not necessarily their workplace. It is not intended to be used as medical advice and does not take the place of advice from a qualified health care practitioner in a clinical setting. Please check with your healthcare practitioner before embarking upon any of the treatments or lifestyle changes discussed.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Welcome to Prosper Natural Cancer Care. I'm Carla Wren. We discuss naturopathic cancer care, integrative oncology and lifestyle medicine. Examining complimentary medicine tradition, science, evidence-based personalised health care for people with cancer. If you or a loved one has a cancer diagnosis, or you're a professional with an interest in complementary medicine or cancer care, you've come to the right place. Let's prosper. But before we start today, let's take a moment to define the word prosper and why it's an important word for me in the work I do. Prosper is defined as to flourish physically, grow strong and healthy, to become strong and flourishing, to cause to succeed or thrive. These words and words like choose hope are important to me as I aim to empower, educate and encourage people in my practice and on this podcast. Please be sure to take a moment at the end of today's show to listen to the very important disclaimer. Welcome to Prosper Natural Cancer Care. And today we're going to talk about your big folder. How you can collate your own story. So information is so important to me at Prosper, and the patient's journey is everything. The type of information I want, ideally before our first session together, might not be what you think. I remember in Professor Karen Phelps' book, The Cancer Recovery Guide, she encourages patients to make a big folder with all their medical records, treatments, questions, diet, metrics, right up from the start of their journey. She lists so many inspiring reasons why this is important. Now might be a good time to grab a pen and write down some of the ideas that you might like to start collating for your own big folder or file of your cancer story. The information I like to include for my patients is quite varied. And, you know, not everyone's going to have all of this information straight up, but collecting it makes it easier for care providers and people who are working as part of your care team to give you the best care. I ask, of course, for all that general information, but I want details like who are your health care provider, your GP, your surgeon, your radiation oncologist, and medical oncologist. This enables me to be able to collaborate with this care team. Other relevant health providers' details like acupuncturist, exercise physiologist, chiropractors, nurses, gynecologists, or psychologists, can also be really helpful. Understanding what's important to you, your aims, concerns, values, and priorities are also really important to me. These are sometimes things that you might like to note down before going to an appointment. I always encourage my patients to come with a note of the things they've been thinking about prior to our appointment or between appointments. Things like what's important to you now in today's appointment, but also in the future. Do you have any primary current concerns or core questions? What are your immediate hopes out of today's treatment and treatment in the future? I want to know also about your patient primary support network. Who do I contact in case of emergencies, but also who are family and friends, colleagues, people that might be supporting you outside your cancer care team? I of course want to know about your diagnosis. I want to see the histopathology report. I want to see the diagnosis date, analysis around tumor or genetic markers, radiology scans like MRIs or PET scans, your general pathology, not just now, but perhaps from the last couple of years. You can usually get all of these details by contacting your GP. I want to know about your treatment. Have you been given paperwork around treatment? Treatment including surgery, radiation, other systemic therapies, medications are all important to my creation of your care plan. Pop these in your big folder. You can see how it's starting to develop. Noting down side effects or adverse effects you've had previously can also be really helpful as a form of recording in your big folder, as well as current and persistent symptoms when they started and how they're improving or worsening. I also like to ask my patients straight up front what kind of complimentary, natural, and alternative treatments they've already tried or they're wanting to know more about. Of course, I need to know their current prescriptions, including complementary medicine and over-the-counter medications. One of the things that holds up my ability to prescribe for a patient and speed up the way at which we can work together is lack of information about the general medication they're taking. Most people come understanding the medication they'll be taking for their oncology diagnosis, but knowing what they're taking for their blood pressure or other health complaints can often be lacking. So have details in your big folder of all the medications that you're taking, including the complementary medicines. I want to know if you're taking any recreational drugs or other self-medications, things like smoking and alcohol. Any known allergies and what those allergies might be, whether it be a medication or a dietary food or something from the environment. Grabbing information about family cancer risk can also be helpful. Having a chat to people who might know more about this if you don't know enough. Special dietary information is also helpful. Is there foods that you're including or avoiding? Taking note of this and including a couple of days diet diary really speeds up the process. Looking at understanding what kind of quality of life challenges you're having at the moment is also really helpful for me. Are you having challenges with emotional or mental health? Physical functioning issues within your home or workplace, spirituality concerns, questions around end of life or mortality worries, stress management fears, fears of reoccurrence, fatigue or memory loss, sleep challenges, balance or coordination issues, pain or anxiety, weight changes, financial challenges, work or school place challenges, fertility challenges, challenges with your digestion or elimination, relationship or marriage challenges, sex or intimacy challenges, or concerns about your carers. All of these are helpful to note down. I always like patients to think about the question I would like to discuss before coming to the appointment and make sure that I can achieve the things they want in the time we have together. So have a think about the I would like to discuss question before you head into each of appointment. You might like to take a note of this before your appointment and pop it in the front of your big folder. Hopefully, this information has started to give you some details about the things you can think about to put your big folds together. It's a great resource to have and bring along to each appointment and really makes the appointment move more smoothly. Other tips is getting all your blood tests. As a practitioner who relies so much on blood tests to understand and track my patients, having a neat spreadsheet of results is also really helpful, and this might be something you'd like to keep active and add to your big folder. Patients who create historical and up-to-date spreadsheets of their pathology allow me to spend more time to chat with them about their pathology instead of shifting through all the papers. When organized well, your pathology shows so much information. Trends in biochemistry like liver function or kidney function allow me to understand priorities for your patients and potentially important treatment suggestions. Tracking white cell count, nutritional levels, inflammation, or blood glucose all tell me so much about the hallmarks of cancer, cancer metabolism, disease progression, and so much more. To learn more about cancer metabolism and the hallmarks of cancer, why don't you take a moment to listen to episode two? Our next episode will be discussing pathology of interest and how to understand your own pathology. It's so powerful whether or not you have cancer. For more information on Prosper Natural Cancer Care, visit ProsperCancerCare.co. For more information and to get in touch, please visit Carren.com. Disclaimer. This podcast is intended to be informational only and represents the opinion of the participants, but not necessarily their workplace. It is not intended to be used as medical advice and does not take the place of advice from a qualified health practitioner in a clinical setting. Please check with your healthcare practitioner before embarking upon any of the treatments or lifestyle changes discussed.