Other sources of help
Soul Nutrition is a free interactive website designed to support mindfulness, happiness and self-esteem. When faced with a difficult diagnosis it is common to feel overwhelmed with concerns about the future, so Soul Nutrition offers three tools to help you stay in the moment and hence cope more easily with whatever life throws in your path.
The Happiness Calendar is used to record three moments of happiness each day, helping to maintain a positive outlook and build up a cloud of happy memories to draw on whenever you need them. Nourish is a mindful eating food diary, empowering you to discover which foods support you most effectively. SHIFT is a unique life coaching model to help anchor you in the present moment, enabling you to play to your existing strengths and shift the balance in life to experience happiness more often.
In the midst of modern life we are bombarded by messages about what could or should make us happy. Soul Nutrition gives you space to think, to reconnect with the inner voice that has your best interests at heart, and to explore how best to act on the insights that are gained.
The website is completely free, with options to donate to Astro Brain Tumour Fund should you wish to do so.
www.soulnutrition.org
Macmillan Cancer Relief provides various support services. Free publications and audio tapes in 7 languages are available.
They also run the “Living with Cancer Project”, a programme to help you learn new skills and techniques to manage your symptoms and emotions, reduce stress, improve your diet, make informed decisions about treatment, and generally get more out of life. Freephone Tel. 0808 808 0000
Headway aims to promote understanding of all aspects of brain injury, including that sustained due to the effects of brain tumours, surgery & radiotherapy as well as by other means. They provide information (including excellent books) & support to people with a brain injury, their family and carers. They often provide a good programme of local social events too.
Free Helpline: 0800 800 2244
Caring Bridge offers you the opportunity to set up a free website & blog so that you can keep friends and family informed about how you are, which saves having to repeat your story to everyone individually after an appointment or treatment, for example. People who sign up to your blog are then automatically sent an email alert when you have added an update.
There is another very useful website called LotsaHelpingHands. Rather than asking people directly for help which can sometimes feel very awkward, here you can create a free of charge, private, web-based community to organize family, friends, neighbours and colleagues – a family’s ‘circles of community’ – during times of need.
You can coordinate activities and manage volunteers with the intuitive group calendar, as well as communicate and share information using announcements, messages boards, and photos. Don’t forget that everyone around you is also having to cope in their own ways with what is happening to you and your family, and by giving them tasks to do you can help many of them, so don’t feel guilty asking them for favours! Using this website you will soon discover the different ways people can offer their support – but be imaginative and specific. Do you want help mowing the lawn, walking the dog, taking the children to their activities, making meals for the freezer, or just people to keep you company at times?
If you are short of ideas about how people can help, a book that you may find useful to share with those around you is “What Can I Do To Help? Practical Ideas for Family & Friends from Cancer’s Frontline” by Deborah Hutton, pub.Short Books. Royalties go to Macmillan Cancer Relief if you buy it from their shop.
Life Coach Directory only lists qualified/registered UK based Life Coaches. Their website enables you to search their database to find somebody in your local area, with listings including information on their training and experience, areas of life coaching, fees and contact details.
Nutritionist Resource have established a website which provides the public with easy access to nutritional advice. All listed nutritionists have provided them with qualifications and insurance cover or proof of membership with a professional body.
The Cancer Counselling Trust offers counselling for individuals and couples by telephone or at their base in Islington, London. Tel. 020 7843 2292
There are also many independent charities offering free or heavily subsidised counselling services throughout the UK. These can be found through an internet search using the name of your local area and the search term “Counselling”.
Counselling Directory only lists qualified/registered Counsellors and Psychotherapists in the UK. Their website enables you to search their database to find somebody in private practice in your local area, with listings including information on their training and experience, areas of counselling, fees and contact details.
Rosetta Life is an artist-led organisation enabling people with life threatening illnesses and their families to explore their experiences through video, photography, drama, poetry, fiction and other art forms. Tel. 01608 676662
Health Creation is a company founded by a former Medical Director of The Bristol Cancer Help Centre, Dr.Rosy Daniel. They produce ‘The Cancer Lifeline Kit’, a comprehensive interactive self-help programme covering all aspects of cancer treatment and recovery, both medical and alternative. Helpline: 0845 009 3366
The Rarer Cancers Forum offers information about rare and less common cancers, and facilitates supportive networking between patients. Tel. 01227 738 279
Penny Brohn Cancer Care is a charity that offers life changing complementary care to men and women affected by cancer at any stage of their illness. It also supports families and carers of those living with cancer. www.pennybrohn.org.uk Tel: 0845 123 23 10
If you live in the US and would like to access support for children when an adult in their life has been diagnosed with a brain tumour, The Child Life Council may operate in your area and be able to help.
Yes to Life is a charitable initiative to open up a positive future for people with cancer in the UK, by supporting an integrated approach to cancer care. Through their Help Centre and interactive Web Directory they provide support in obtaining complementary and alternative cancer treatments and consultations throughout the UK and Europe, to enhance and support the orthodox treatments available within the NHS framework. They also hold regular events featuring leaders from many different fields of complementary medicine, details of which can be found on their website
Mobility Advice Line offers free confidential impartial advice to disabled members of the public, their carers, friends and family – regardless of race, gender, or sexuality – about all aspects of disability.
Annabandana, has been trading since Sept 2009 as a small home based company in Devon specialising in headwear for ladies undergoing chemotherapy as well as many other hair loss conditions.
Tel: 01297 553747