I wanted to share some things I bought that really made a huge difference in our quality of life when my partner was going through treatment. I’ve ranked them based on how important they were for us.
When you’re going through cancer treatment, you’re basically living in constant discomfort and pain. You can’t even eat normally like you used to during chemo without worrying about infections from food.
You also have to keep hygiene levels at tip top condition because of the crash in the patient’s immunity system.
Jacket
When you’re doing chemo, they usually put in a chemo port. And the chemo drug is supposed to enter through the chemo port when you are at the hospital. Then when you go home, they will attach a chemo pump to the port that you have to wear for a few days before going back to the hospital to get it removed.
The tricky part about this chemo pump is there’s this tube sticking out of you for like 2 days, and if you’re not careful, especially when you’re sleeping, you can accidentally pull it.
That’s where wearing a jacket becomes a lifesaver. It covers the whole pump and tube which keeps everything secure inside the jacket.
So when you’re tossing and turning at night, you won’t accidentally pull the tube out. Trust me, you don’t want that to happen.
Office chair with wheels
When the cancer spread to my partner’s bones, just walking became really painful. And recovering from surgery? Even worse. But honestly, the real lifesaver for her was getting an office chair with wheels.
Look, when you’re healthy, moving around the house from one room to another is nothing, right? But when you’re in that much pain, it’s absolute hell. Even something as simple as going to the kitchen felt impossible for her. Having that office chair meant she could just roll herself around instead of having to walk everywhere.
It gave her back some independence and meant she didn’t have to rely on me for every little thing.
Projector, playstation and laptop combo
So when you’re going through chemo, your immune system basically crashes. You’re pretty much stuck at home most of the time because you can’t risk getting sick or catching any kind of infection.
What I did was set up this Epson projector in my room connected to a PlayStation, and I projected it onto this huge blank wall.
Every single day, without fail after work when I get home, we’d just lie in bed with the aircon on, playing PlayStation games or hooking the laptop up to watch movies.
The projection onto the wall is like 130 inches and it is right in front of my bed.
It was honestly the best setup for getting through those days especially when the patient can’t go anywhere and also creating quality memories. Such happy memories are important for her mental health and confidence as she is going through the treatment.
Vacuum robot
So when someone in your house is doing chemo, their immune system is basically shot. Any little infection can become life-threatening and land them in the hospital. My partner’s landlord actually got an infection once, ended up hospitalized, and had to push back chemo for 3 weeks. It was scary.
That’s why keeping your place clean is super important. But here’s the thing, if you’re working, it’s really hard to keep up with sweeping and mopping all the time. This is where having a robot vacuum became a total lifesaver for us.
You literally just press a button on your phone app and it goes around cleaning and mopping the house on its own. Don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t replace doing a proper deep clean yourself, but it takes such a huge load off you as a caregiver.
Bed with pillow top
When my partner was going through chemo, she got really skinny. Sitting for long periods became super painful for her, especially on hard surfaces. Even regular spring mattresses would start hurting after a while.
Thankfully, I’d been using this king-sized latex bed with a pillow top, and that made such a huge difference for her comfort when she was sitting or lying in bed.
If you don’t have a pillow top on your bed, I’d definitely recommend getting a soft mattress topper to put on top of what you already have. It really helps.
Transport and food delivery premium membership
So in Southeast Asia we have Grab, and in Western countries you probably know Uber. When the cancer spread to my partner’s bones, she could barely walk for more than 3 minutes.
Having a monthly ride and food subscription honestly saved us so much money. It will cost so much more if we do not subscribe.
We were constantly going to doctor appointments and ordering food, those were our biggest expenses during treatment.
At least 6 trips to the hospital and probably 8 dinners via food delivery services per month. We tried to save on the costs.
Even when I wasn’t around, she could still get herself to the doctor or grab food on her own.
It gave her some independence back and took some pressure off me as her caregiver, which was huge for both of us.
Also sometimes, the cost savings are huge with some 20% off the bill on some rides.
Conclusion
Those are the things I bought that really enhanced her quality of life.
Of course, there were other items that helped make things better too, but the ones I mentioned above are the ones that truly made a real difference for us.
I hope the above sharing can help you in your cancer journey. If you think this is useful, please support me by buying me a coffee at the bottom right corner 🙂
