Through my research of kidney cancer, I came across a few sites that provided support groups for people with renal cell carcinoma. The first site that caught my eye was a site call The Daily Strength. This is a current site that has a blog for patients and family and friends of patients with renal cell carcinoma. Advice is also given by doctors on any topic that may come to mind.
Some of the discussions that I was able to see discussed a relieved patient’s end with the use of a certain medication. Another discussed a patient’s anxiety of being diagnosed six months prior with renal cell carcinoma and all of the tests that they are preparing for. There was also a blog written by the spouse of a cancer patient. I found this to be interesting because of the fact that the spouses need support, too.
There is a portion of the website that gives information on different types of treatment. Anyone can go into the page and click on any of the types of treatment to find more information. For example, I clicked on the link for dialysis. The definition for dialysis appeared, along with other discussions by different members of the website that gave their opinions and experiences with dialysis. This is also true for all of the other types of treatment that were available on the site.
Group members are able to create personal goals. The goals range from staying positive for loved ones to being supportive to getting in touch with their faith. Group members post their goals and give updates whenever they choose to. Other group members are able to post on their goals and give them words of encouragement and advice that may help them reach their goals. There is even a progress bar where the person can show how far along they are in meeting their goal.
I think this is a really great site for people with renal cell carcinoma to use because of all of the support and information it gives. There are also many links on the site for people to use to go to find more information on whatever the topic of interest may be. Some of these sites are even recommended or discussed by the members of the support group. I would suggest this site to anyone who has renal cell carcinoma or to any of the patients’ family or friends.
This site is also great for other topics. The site provides support for topics like: pregnancy, addictions, widows/widowers, other cancers, sleep disorders, behavior disorders, and relationships-just to name a few. If anyone is interested in looking further into the site the link is: www.dailystrength.org.
Renal Cell Carcinoma (Kidney Cancer) Support Group. (2009, October 25). Retrieved October 25, 2009, from http://www.dailystrength.org/c/Renal-Cell-Carcinoma-Kidney-Cancer/support-group.
Renal Cell Carcinoma 