Creating a Survival Team

HollyDollyD

What is a Survival Team?

A survival team is a group of people each of whom have distinct responsibilities to help YOU through this journey. Especially those of us who are planners and doers sometimes find the waiting tough. A survival team should take responsibility off your shoulders so that you can concentrate on showing up to treatments, resting, and getting well. It took me about 2 weeks to put together my team. When friends call and ask, "What can I do?" I tell them to join my praying team and choose another team to work on, if they would like. Each team has a head who runs that team for you. That way you are only directly working with a few people, rather than dealing with everyone who wants to help. If you can think of more areas, let's add on and I will update this post as necessary. Let's make the journey easy on us and lean on our friends and family and others who love us - it takes a village! Thanks to Paisley, who posted elsewhere and gave me the opportunity to share this with everyone.

(((HUGS)))

Holly

Survival Team

Research Head (in charge of reading relevant research, translating it into English, and liaising with the oncologist, to make sure we were all on the same page and everyone understood all of our options)

Nutrition Head (in charge of researching diet, nutrition and exercise, as well as CAM. CAM had to be checked by the oncologist)

Meal Train (in charge of organizing meals both for the patient while in hospital AND for the family during treatment)

Support Train (in charge of finding good videos, arranging friends, stopping friend overwhelm, etc.)

Medical/Records Head (in charge of keeping all the records and notes and making sure that what we ordered was what we got, insurance filing, etc.)

Prayer Head (in charge of prayer cover, AND printing out all prayers because that is uplifting. People around the world are praying for me...I like to put dots on maps to remind me that I have friends and acquaintances around the world who are covering me in prayer like a blanket of snow.)

Kid Care Team (in charge of picking up/dropping off kids, ensuring their life is as normal as possible and helping them through this)

PR Head (in charge of notifying friends so I don't have to deal with 1000 emails from colleagues, co-workers, etc.)

Surgery Team (in charge of anything surgery related - from transportation to/from surgery and arranging home help for post-surgery personal assistance afterwards)

Chemo Team (in charge of ensuring that you never have to go to a chemo treatment alone if you don't want to, as well as transportation. Should also be able to help you with resources for side-effects)

Radiation Team (in charge of ensuring that you never have to go to a radiation treatment alone if you don't want to - although they won't be in the room with you- as well as transportation. Should also be able to help you with resources for side-effects)

Peregrinelady

Great ideas here!