UA News

Catherine Marshall's experiences from caring for her father helped her create a guide for others suddenly thrust into the new role.

When Catherine Marshall's father was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1998, she was as unprepared, as most people are, to deal with such devastating news – regardless of the fact she was a Fulbright Scholar with a doctoral degree and many years of experience working in the field of rehabilitation.

Some 1.5 million people in the U.S. are diagnosed with cancer each year, and Marshall was suddenly among the many family members who become their unpaid caregivers. But she didn't have a clue as to what the disease was, let alone how best to help her father.

"It didn't matter that I was the first in the family to go to college. I didn't feel very smart," said Marshall, editor of "Surviving Cancer as a Family and Helping Co-Survivors Thrive," just released by Praeger, an imprint of publisher ABC-CLIO, LLC. 

"I knew nothing about cancer, and I knew nothing about how to help my father. I only knew I didn't want him to die. I was scared," she said.

Cancer claimed Marshall's father in 2000 and set her on a path of personal and professional discovery that put her in touch with a variety of cancer survivors, caregivers and medical professionals, whose poignant stories about their experiences comprise the book.

Marshall, a senior scholar with the University of Arizona's Center of Excellence in Women's Health and the Frances McClelland Associate Research Professor at the UA Frances McClelland Institute for Children, Youth, and Families, said the goal of the book is to encourage a dialogue about cancer before families are touched by the disease.

"I also want to let people know it's OK not to know how to be a caregiver or to not want to fill that role," she added.

It is the first in a series of books, "Disability Insights and Issues," that Marshall will co-edit for Praeger with Elizabeth Kendall, a research professor with the Griffith Institute of Health and Medical Research and associate director of the Centre for National Research on Disability and Rehabilitation at Griffith University in Meadowbrook, Australia.

Marshall's book, which is available on Amazon.com and is being marketed to public and research libraries, blends practical information with emotional support and points out culturally sensitive issues that can compound the stresses that families experience when helping a loved one fight cancer.

Its 16 chapters include information about helping parents understand cancer in children, helping children understand parental cancer, stories about children and grandchildren who have experienced cancer in their families, coping with cancer in gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender families, and cancer's impact on Latino, American Indian, Asian and African American families. It also provides information about support groups, financial assistance and other untapped resources that can help families cope, celebrate life and thrive.

Medical advances may have postponed deaths and improved the quality of life for many cancer patients, Marshall said, but they've also prolonged the impact on caregivers and families, who can sometimes display post-traumatic stress disorder-like symptoms requiring their own types of intervention and medical care.

Marshall said, "Cancer is shifting from a life-ending disease to being viewed as a chronic illness that results in some type of disability," and intensifying the need for better communication among family members she calls co-survivors and medical personnel with whom they interact.

"Given the pervasiveness of cancer today, it's likely almost everyone will be touched in some way by the disease," said Stephen T. Russell, director of the Frances McClelland Institute and Fitch Nesbitt Endowed Chair in the Norton School of Family and Consumer Sciences.

"Dr. Marshall has produced a truly unique, easy-to-read book that will help people better understand and cope with diagnoses of cancer among family, colleagues or friends. It also will provide health-care professionals with valuable insights that can improve treatment programs for patients and their loved ones."