Living with a serious disease such as stomach cancer is not easy. You may worry about caring for your family, keeping your job, or continuing daily activities. Concerns about treatments and managing side effects, hospital stays, and medical bills are also common. Doctors, nurses, and other members of your health care team can answer questions about treatment, working, or other activities. Meeting with a social worker, counselor, or member of the clergy also can be helpful if you want to talk about your feelings or concerns. Often, a social worker can suggest resources for financial aid, transportation, home care, or emotional support.
Support groups also can help. In these groups, patients or their family members meet with other patients or their families to share what they have learned about coping with the disease and the effects of treatment. Groups may offer support in person, over the telephone, or on the Internet. You may want to talk with a member of your health care team about finding a support group.
Information Specialists at 1-800-4-CANCER and at LiveHelp (http://www.cancer.gov/cis) can help you locate programs, services, and publications. For a list of organizations offering support, you may want to get the NCI fact sheet "National Organizations That Offer Services to People With Cancer and Their Families." For tips on coping, you may want to read the NCI booklet Taking Time: Support for People With Cancer and the People Who Care About Them.
The promise of cancer research
Doctors all over the country are conducting many types of clinical trials (research studies in which people volunteer to take part). For stomach cancer, they are studying surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and combinations of these types of treatment.
Clinical trials are designed to answer important questions and to find out whether new approaches are safe and effective. Research already has led to advances, and researchers continue to search for more effective methods for dealing with stomach cancer.
People who join clinical trials may be among the first to benefit if a new approach is effective. And even if people in a trial do not benefit directly, they still make an important contribution by helping doctors learn more about stomach cancer and how to control it in other patients. Although clinical trials may have some risks, doctors do all they can to protect their patients.
If you are interested in being part of a clinical trial, talk with your doctor. You may want to read the NCI booklet Taking Part in Clinical Trials: What Cancer Patients Need To Know. NCI also offers an easy-to-read brochure called If You Have Cancer…What You Should Know About Clinical Trials. These NCI publications describe how clinical trials are carried out and explain their possible benefits and risks.
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