Providing care to a loved one with cancer who does not live near you can be challenging and stressful. The following suggestions can help you work with and around many of the challenges of long-distance caregiving.

Get organized. The following tips can help you stay on top of your caregiving tasks:

• Collect and sort information about the medical, financial, and legal needs of the person with cancer. This will help you and other caregivers make informed decisions. Some people use a binder or file folder to keep track of everything.

Caring for a person with cancer can be hard emotionally and physically. However, there can also be moments that are comforting and rewarding.

Depending on the needs of the person with cancer, you may provide different types of support, including:

• Emotional support

• Help with medical care

• Help with financial and insurance issues

• Serving as the communicator between the patient and the health care team

This article provides tips to help you care for your loved one.

A caregiver is someone who provides physical, practical, and emotional support to a person with cancer. They may do many different things. For example, they may:

• Give support and encouragement

• Give medicines

• Help manage symptoms and side effects

• Help make appointments or give rides

• Help with meals or chores

• Help with legal and financial issues, such as bills and insurance

For many people with cancer, connecting with others provides emotional support and inspiration during a challenging time. Whether it's joining a support group or finding a support buddy, there are several options to get the help you need.

Taking the following steps can make a hospital stay easier to manage for both you and the person with cancer.

Be an active part of the health care team

As a caregiver, you are an important part of the health care team. You can provide information about the person's health choices to team members. By doing this, you will help the doctors and nurses give better care.

If you have been diagnosed with cancer, putting your health care wishes in writing is important to do.

Thinking and planning for what could happen in the future and talking about it with family, friends, and caregivers can be difficult. Even if it is hard, knowing your wishes are clear can give you and your family peace of mind. Your caregivers may need to make important health care decisions for you when you are sick and knowing your wishes can make this easier on them. 

"Home care" is health care and supportive services given by a trained professional at a patient's home. A person may need home care to recover from surgery or a long hospital stay. Other people need more long-term home care during and after cancer treatment.

There are many reasons to consider bringing a professional caregiver into your home. For example, home care can help you or your loved one spend less time in the hospital. This includes people with advanced cancer, who can receive hospice care in the home.

Often, family and friends share caregiving responsibilities when their loved one has cancer. Working together to provide care for a person with cancer can have positive and negative impacts. Knowing common caregiving problems beforehand and learning strategies to work through them can help you navigate this challenging time.