Building Your Cancer Care Team – Referrals and Resources

In this episode, Carla delves into the essential members of a supportive cancer care team, emphasizing a holistic approach where the patient is central, supported closely by both an oncologist and naturopath and surrounded by a diverse range of professionals. Integrative oncology focuses on tending to all aspects of a patient's mental, emotional and physical health. Carla highlights her top care team referrals and explains their valuable contributions to patient wellbeing:

1. Psycho-Oncology Support – Psychotherapists, counsellors, or psychologists specialising in psycho-oncology help patients process the psychological impact of cancer, coping strategies and effective communication with loved ones and providers.

2. Exercise Physiologists – Programs like "Living with Cancer" guide patients in safe, beneficial physical activities to support overall health and resilience during treatment.

3. Lymphedema Specialists – Vital for managing and preventing lymphedema, these specialists help maintain quality of life for patients undergoing certain types of cancer treatments.

4. McGrath Nurses – Providing in-depth support for breast cancer patients, these nurses offer guidance, care and resources, enhancing patient experience and confidence.

5. Carer Support – Dedicated resources, like Canteen and experts such as Rebecca Warren, provide invaluable support to caregivers, ensuring they have the resources and emotional support needed.

6. Gather My Crew – A community-driven resource that helps organize support from family, friends and the broader community to address practical needs for those with cancer.

7. Spiritual Support – Reiki, kinesiology, trauma support or religious guidance can offer comfort and help patients navigate existential questions, fostering a sense of peace and connection.

8. Mind-Body Practices – Programs like the Gupta Program for brain retraining are evidence-based practices supporting mental and physical health in chronic conditions, including cancer.

9. Hobbies and Personal Development – Patients are encouraged to spend time on hobbies and passions, as time spent doing things they love enhances their sense of fulfilment.

10. Legacy and Purpose – Considering one's legacy, how they wish to be remembered, what they contribute to the world and their "why", helps patients find purpose and meaning, guiding them through their journey.

Carla encourages listeners to reflect on who they want on their own care team to best support their journey. 

Next Episode Preview: Carla will explore the fascinating connection between cancer and the microbiome and all this can bring to your health, cancer treatment and, testing and therapeutic opportunities. 

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 complementary medicine tradition, science, evidence-based personalized 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. This is Prosper Natural Cancer Care, and today we're going to talk about the care team and referrals I love. All elements of the patient's mental, emotional, physical health were being treated and tended to. And so here are some of my most favorite parts of the cancer care team and why I think they're so important to achieving great oncology results. Firstly, I love thinking about, of course, the treating part of the team. Collaborative relationships as oncologists, radiation oncologists, surgeons achieve great benefits for the patient. And so it's something that we need to encourage. And I hope over my career I can do my bit to help to facilitate a respected and beneficial patient and practitioner relationship between naturopaths and other complementary medicine practitioners, like nutritionists and the standard oncology care team, people like oncologists, surgeons, and radiation oncologists. And already over the last 10 or 15 years, I feel like this is really improving. And I have great relationships with many in my own local area and around Australia. And so this care team then extends out from there to include other people. So the next we'll think about is um, or the first we'll think about is um psychooncology and the benefit of some kind of uh mental emotional sports from a psychologist, a psychotherapist, um, or even a counselor. And so having this kind of support and tapping into the research that is psychooncology allows us to really deal with the physiological reactions to the experience of cancer, the psychological reactions and the behavioral component and understanding and coping with cancer as well as the health behavior changes that might be needed to improve outcomes for patients, is all part of the understanding of psychooncology. It also examines the social factors that are associated with the cancer diagnosis and the treatment, and includes help with communication around friends and providers and loved ones, with you know, workplaces requiring so much change, perhaps for a patient when they're undergoing treatment, maybe sexual health changes that are impacting partners or parenting arrangement effects that are undergoing change when treatment. You know, patients really need to be empowered to have all sorts of conversations, sometimes quite deep or profound conversations need to be had and the exploration of the understanding of dying or religious beliefs or you know, could all tie into the emotional things that may be affecting patients' mental and emotional health. And so we want to explore these because I know for myself when my patient has a great grasp or support in their mental emotional area, I find my treatment outcomes are improved. And so if you're an oncology patient that hasn't yet been referred for some kind of mental emotional support in the psycho oncology field, it's something to speak to your general practitioner or your oncology specific team, including myself, about so we can get a really strong referral for you. And I've created a referral network because I think that there are some practitioners that suit some patients better. Um, and there's also really great places we can refer the carers of oncology patients to as well. And of course, when we move towards the palliative care space, uh working with a psychologist or oncology-trained counsellor or someone in the palliative care team to support the mental emotional needs of the patient is really important as well. The next part of the cancer care team I love to work with is exercise physiologists. They often have programs like Living with Cancer already available in their clinics, and exercise physiologists can be found in most towns. I love them and I explain them to my patient as a bit like if a physiotherapist merged with a personal trainer and they can become your own physical motivator to ensure that you get the most out of exercise. There's loads of research on different types of exercise in different types of cancer diagnoses and different stages, and getting this support enables patients like yourself or your loved ones to be able to really get the most out of movement when a patient's diagnosed with cancer. The last thing we want them to do is take up CrossFit or you know marathons. We really need them to understand the importance of choosing the right type of exercise, especially during the right phases of their treatment. And while I can give some guidelines to my patients about exercise, I love to refer to an exercise physiologist. So if they've just recovered from surgery or due to go to surgery or they're having a more intense treatment, or they're in a window between treatment, we can find the right surgery or treatment appropriate exercise, recovery exercise for them. And if there is any other little niggles, bad back, you know, I've had patients who have been dealing with chronic hip pain from their profession as perhaps a trade and then a diagnosed. And so trying to manage the improvements that you can achieve with exercise during oncology and the research with the um combined issue of a past injury means we really need some professional help. So I love exercise physiologists for that. I also love to use lymphedema specialists, and we have a great one in my hometown. Um, but hopefully, you have a lymphedema specialist, a nurse or a lymphedema trained clinic near you. And lymphedema can be a really difficult to deal with side effect of some surgeries, particularly where there has been impacts and surgery around the lymph node space, and maybe some removal of lymph tissue. And this can cause some changes in the pooling or um distribution of fluid around the body that can become very problematic when someone wants to exercise in hot weather. Often patients, when they travel, really um have a hard time with their lymphedema. Um, it can affect their job or their you know parenting or caring responsibilities quite a lot if that um limb that's affected, particularly is you know their dominant hand or um is affecting the ability to move around freely. And so a lymphedema specialist can sometimes be um overlooked, but I definitely think it's something that can make a significant difference, even if it's just teaching a patient or their loved one how to really move the lymphatic fluid and keep um you know drainage working in that affected limb. And so um massage techniques, uh, different devices that help to move the fluid out of limbs. These are all things that you can have done at a lymphedema specialist, but also tools and tricks that you can be um taught and provided with to work on your lymphedema at home. And I think this is a great way to really get some improved quality of life if lymphedema is bothering you as uh your treatment progresses. Uh, the other specialist I love is the McGrath nurses. And the MGRA nurses are a foundation that was developed by Jane McGrath in her memory, a group of wonderfully qualified breast cancer and metastatic breast cancer uh nurses uh with some moving into ovarian cancer as well. And the McGraw Nurses uh in my local area are wonderful, great at supporting my patients. Um, I've had the privilege of educating at the MGRA cancer and your convention and meeting a whole lot of people uh in that space and just a great foundation whether you call up their website and I'm sorry, look up their website and call up their hotline on there to speak to one of their Magre nurses or get help finding one in your local area. I say to my patients with breast cancer, Magrah nurses can be your best friend in this process. They're a balance between your oncologist or surgeon uh and your loved ones. They are a great connector between all different services, uh, helping you find services that you may not have known about in your local area or you need to access even advice around things like wigs, you know, and and treatment side effects uh and uh statistics around um benefits of different side effects. Um, just someone to lean on, someone that understands uh the MGRA nurses are great. So if you have breast cancer and uh have the opportunity to engage with a MGRA nurse, please do. The next area I wanted to think about or mention is almost one of the most important parts of every patient's care team, and that's their carers. And their carers will most often be a loved one, a partner, a close friend. And these people are, of course, all not usually trained in oncology, but suddenly thrown into this area just like a patient after diagnosis. And so we want to provide lots and lots and lots of support for the carers because statistically we know that there is a reduced health quality of life happening in carers after a significant amount of caring, their health starts to decline as well. Their food choices, their sleep patterns, their stress levels, they all change. And so uh I really wanted to credit here one of my naturopathic colleagues, Rebecca Warren, who is doing her PhD in caring for carers of oncology patients. And I hope to have Rebecca on the podcast soon. Uh, Rebecca has working to develop uh support systems for carers, but there are other support systems in place. And I think of organizations like Canteen, which are great to support young family members who may be diagnosed with cancer themselves or also who have family members going through cancer. Um, care support is often available in your council or through your council as well. The McGrath Foundation nurses will have suggestions for carer support and are often great people to support carers too. There is also a brilliant new app, which is a great uh thing to have on your care team. If we can call an app a member of your care team, the Gather My Crew app would certainly be a great resource for people with cancer and their communities to improve communication between carers and the extended family or loved ones or friends or workplace or school mummies or other people involved in helping support a patient, getting that communication going, but also helping carers and the patients get access to the kind of sort of support they really need. I joke uh about having a whole fridge full of uh lasagna after a cancer diagnosis, lasagna and bolognese and all those delicious and helpful meals are often brought to patients, but after a while that starts to you know whistle out, and um the cancer patient often needs longer-term support with things. It might be picking up kids from school on treatment days, or it might be accessing the farmer's market boxes of organic fruit and vegetables, it might be lifts to treatment, it could be um any number of things, and the Gather My Crew app enables people to be able to get help with these kinds of um more practical support, which is often what a carer will need as well as a patient. Now, I wanted to mention spiritual support as something that really forms part of our psycho-oncology, but also overall cancer care team. And a spiritual support can include things like Reiki, kinesiology, religious support if you're religiously affiliated or trauma work. And this kind of spiritual support I think is very important, and many patients ask about this kind of work because they may have had a spiritual belief throughout their life or a religious faith, and it's the cancer diagnosis that often brings this back to them as a support they need to work through and understand on some level their diagnosis. So, spiritual support is something you will definitely find in your area, and I highly encourage you to examine this with a psychologist or counsellor, or access Reiki or kinesiology, or some other kind of trauma work, or lean into your faith and support services in that religious community. Mind body practices also extend somewhat into that spiritual space, and mind body practices like science-based brain retraining can be really beneficial in chronic conditions like cancer. I refer my patients to the Gupta program. Having heard Professor Gupta talk about his program in a number of conferences, I think his Science Back brain training program uh is brilliant, and you can start with a free trial on that to get to find out a little bit more about how mind-body practices uh can really make a difference to how you cope with the stress of a diagnosis and manage with some of the physical and mental emotional, you know, kind of fallout from having significant treatment or after uh treatment. I also wanted to kind of tip my hat to other less common thought about areas of a care team. And this can be people who are associated with hobbies that you love or personal development things that you enjoy to do. Uh, we don't often think about it enough, um, but not one of my patients has ever said towards the end of their life that they regret the time they spent doing the things they loved. They often say they wish they spent more time doing the things they were passionate about. They wish they'd done more things like tried new hobbies or spent more time doing the hobby they loved, especially with their loved ones, trying new things or taking that adventure. And so, hobby providers, whether it be, you know, I last year I really enjoyed doing lots of um pottery uh with a friend and her daughter and my daughter. Maybe it's taking up a new sport, maybe it's going to U3A and doing drawing classes or learning to write pottery or learning a new language or planning a trip or you know, going to a group or a gardening club or trying qigung or yoga for the first time. All of these hobbies and personal redevelopments definitely improve outcome. And so reaching out to um people in your community that can maybe help inspire and develop these skills for you is something I recommend as having as part of your care team. This self-care for you, or if you're caring for a loved one with cancer, is an important way to set and refresh in the week and fill that cup that can get all too empty in this process, whether you are the patient or the carer, or you're just generally someone who's looking to improve their well-being. Hobbies and personal development are a way that we can really fill that self-care cup. Then I also wanted to discuss legacy. And so, legacy again is an area that's not often discussed when we think about a cancer care team. But legacy is something that's important to think about after a diagnosis and often comes up for people when they think, you know, will this shorten my life or this experience be the end of me? And legacy is something that we need to think about is your why. You know, what do you want to leave as your contribution to this world? What is your legacy and how will you be remembered? What will they say at your funeral, whether it be in the next shorter period of time or longer period of time? How will you be remembered? And this is something that we don't often think about until faced with something like a cancer diagnosis. Maybe you want to be remembered for your work, or as a kind person, or someone who gave back to the community, or someone that had visited many different parts of the world, or could speak lots of languages, or was a great cook. And if you haven't done these things yet, it's now time. And if you're sitting here listening to this podcast on behalf of a loved one, I'd say, you know, what better time than this as a reminder to do the things we love and do the things we want to be remembered for. Do the things that are your why. And if your why is helping people, or your why is um, you know, to contribute to um a certain area of study or your profession or raise uh children or you know, be amazing as an athlete in a particular sport, now is the time to do your why to live the thing you want to be remembered for and really establish that legacy for yourself. So if you need to reach out to someone as part of um the way you fulfill your legacy, um this is important. It might even be writing your eulogy, and this is something you don't have to be unwell to do. Writing your eulogy is a really amazing analysis of what you've achieved in your life and what you want people to say. And if you haven't done the things you want on there, now is the time to do them. So incorporate that as part of your care team because we know being optimistic and fulfilled and relaxed and hopeful, all of these things improve your outcome. And that's really what a cancer care team is about. Referrals that help you build your optimal life. Whether or not you are um diagnosed with an illness, this is the important thing to think about. It's kind of like building your self-care team, building your support. And so if you haven't got a cancer care team yet, but start to put one together. You can uh speak to me in a consultation or support your carer to develop their own care plan and you develop yours. A vision board is a great way to do this. What do you want on your vision board for the next year? What do you want to achieve and do and contribute? And where have you got gaps in your care team? Um, and maybe your overall life that you can fulfill now. And the vision board might help you see that. So, who do you need to add to your care team? Next episode will discuss the very exciting topic of cancer and the microbiome. For more information on Prosper Natural Cancer Care, visit prospercancercare.co. For more information and to get in touch, please visit Carlaren.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.