I was living in New Orleans when I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2005. My treatment included six months of chemotherapy to shrink my tumor before having surgery to remove it. After that, my doctors found there was still more cancer in my body, which meant they had to operate again. My second surgery was on Friday August 26, 2005. I was supposed to see the doctor again in two weeks to start radiation. Instead, three days later, Hurricane Katrina washed away everything in New Orleans – including the results of my last surgery and my doctor's instructions for my follow-up treatment.

You may not think there was anything fortunate in that story, but let me tell you how lucky I was. Somehow, even as the water rose and people came to rescue us in canoes, I knew I should grab the record I had of my treatment and surgeries. I tell people that I spent seven days with no underwear, but I had my pathology report!

Like thousands of other Katrina survivors, my family and I lived in the Cajundome in Lafayette, Louisiana for three months. It was there that medical personnel interviewed me and got me to a medical team that would figure out my care from that point forward.

Surviving a natural disaster that wiped away my records is an extreme situation. Unfortunately, it is not very different from the confusion that other cancer survivors experience in everyday life. When you have cancer, you suddenly have several doctors caring for you through different stages of treatment. One doctor performs your surgery. Another gives radiation. And then there's chemotherapy, which is usually prescribed by an oncologist and given to you by a nurse. Others draw blood and perform scans. If you're lucky, you also have a social worker helping you through all this while you try to carry on with your family and keep your job. If you have other health issues – such as diabetes, high blood pressure, kidney disease or lung failure – all those doctors need to understand your cancer and the effects of its treatment.

But guess what? The system does not have a way to coordinate all that. Cancer survivors usually have to figure out a lot of new and scary issues on their own. They have to do it while they are feeling sick, stressed out and scared. And they have to do it quickly.

My story of surviving a deadly hurricane is unusual, but everything else about my cancer experience is not unusual, such as:

• The shock of the diagnosis and its life-altering impact
• The quick education I had to get about my treatment options
• The financial impact of paying for costly treatments
• The changes I had to make at work so I could get treated
• The terrible side effects of my treatment
• The anxiety over what long-term effects the radiation and chemo would have on my body

I got chemo every 21 days for six months. My treatment was very toxic and made me feel extremely sick for five days after every treatment. And I mean sick – lifeless, unable to move. Again, I was lucky. My employer worked with me. For six months I worked 21 straight days and then took seven days off for my treatment and recovery. As hard as that was, at least I got to keep my job.

A lot of people with cancer report that when they heard their diagnosis it was as if a tornado hit them or they were struck by lightning. I know I was knocked on my you-know-what by my diagnosis, long before Katrina arrived.

Which brings me to another issue: Patients need to talk to their doctors about their cancer care plans before they start their treatments, and doctors should give their patients a paper copy of that plan. It is hard to hear anything after, "You have cancer." And then you have a lot of things to learn and a lot of decisions to make – a lot of things to talk over with your family. A written plan would have helped me, and I know it would help many other survivors.

And when survivors like me finish their therapies, they should be given something on paper that describes all of their treatments, the possible side effects, what they should do to monitor their health and who will be following up on their care. There's so much to remember- no one can possibly keep it all in their head. 

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