Some metastatic cancer patients want to keep working after being diagnosed”
(Mirror Daily, United States) – Despite the level the disease has reached and how it could affect them, many metastatic cancer patients are still working.
You’d think that when something like cancer happens to you, you’ll want to either be away from the world and suffer in peace or spend more time with your loved ones or simply enjoy the time you have by travelling and checking things off your bucket list. But there are people who just want to go on living their normal lives, waking up early and going to work as usual.
According to researchers, one in three people who have metastatic cancer go on working. And doctors should do anything they can in order to help people go to work if they want to. Despite having metastatic cancer, these people should get to live the rest of their lives just the way they want.
To reach the conclusion that many cancer patients are still working after being diagnosed, the researchers conducted a survey with a number of 668 respondents. While 35 percent of the respondents kept working full time or part time jobs, 45 percent admitted to have stopped working because of their illness. However, almost 60 per cent of them claimed that the cancer has caused them change in their employment.
The main reason behind the decision to continue working is seeing better results in treatment. However, this isn’t always the case. Many people continue working after the diagnosis, regardless of the treatment results or the type of cancer.
Working could indeed benefit the patient. First of all, although their lives had reached a turning point, they won’t let this change them or their lifestyles or schedules. Moreover, they will still interact with people and have a very good reason to keep waking up every morning. And last but not least, it will also be a bit easier for them to have their own financial support, then to depend on others. Being a burden is something everyone is trying to avoid, so having a job makes people feel better about themselves and more confident.
Researchers believe that they should find ways to minimize all factors which could change or prevent cancer patients from working and to try to improve symptoms control. This could lead to the increase of the number of working metastatic cancer patients.
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