[Narrator]

Feeling that you are being forced to learn new ways of coping can put an extra burden on you. It might seem at first that you won't learn the skills in time to be able to deal with a new crisis. You might even feel that you would have made different choices now than you did in the past if you had had all of the facts, or if you had learned or understood something earlier about your illness or treatment.

[Narrator]

The overall goal of this program is to help you learn basic survival skills that can help you deal with your cancer diagnosis and treatment. One of the first things to learn from this program is this: from the time of diagnosis and for the balance of life, a person living with cancer is a survivor. This program will review important self-advocacy skills -- that is, ways to help you stand up for yourself -- so that you can make the quality of your life after cancer diagnosis as good as possible.

[Narrator]

In this series of programs, we will work on learning the six skills that health-care professionals and cancer survivorship groups have found are essential to self-advocacy. Program One focuses on communication skills; Program Two will help you learn new ways to find the information you need. Program Three deals with making decisions; Program Four can help you with new ways to solve problems. Program Five reviews negotiating skills to help you get what you need; and, Program Six covers ways that you can stand up for your own rights.

[Narrator]

You may choose to listen to these programs in order, or you may choose to cover only certain topics. And, you may find it useful to listen to some of the programs more than once to refresh your memory on specific skills. While this program has been designed to assist those of you who have recently been diagnosed, it will also help anyone at any stage of illness who is facing hard decisions and changes in their lives. Family members and caregivers can also use this toolbox on behalf of a child or anyone else in their care.

[Narrator]

The Cancer Survival Toolbox comes with a training booklet that includes many useful resources and additional information on each topic.

[Narrator]

Now, let's begin with Program One, entitled Communicating. The goal of this program is to help you talk with others about your cancer in such a way that you gain the information you need and make sure other people understand your needs and wishes. Let's listen to Linda, an oncology social worker who works with cancer survivors, to find out why she thinks good communication is so important.

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