There are a number of free resources available to cancer patients on the Internet. Below is a list and descriptions of the various tools you can get for free.

Lance Armstrong Foundation
American Cancer Society
The National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship
Discovery Health

Lance Armstrong Foundation Web Site, Livestrong
www.livestrong.org

Lance Armstrong Foundation Web site offers the LIVESTRONG™ Survivorship Notebook free of charge as an easy way for cancer survivors and their caregivers to access and keep important survivorship information organized. Shipping and handling charges are involved.

The LIVESTRONG™ Survivorship Notebook is designed to help you organize and guide your cancer experience. It is a portable notebook, so you can take it with you to health-care appointments and other important meetings. It includes the following:

  • Survivorship Tools - This section will help keep you organized. It contains a personal health journal, including an appointment diary and list for medications, practical life summary for health and financial information, and a medical history and treatment section.
  • Survivorship Stories - This section is full of stories of cancer survivors talking about their experiences with cancer. The section hopes to inspire and empower people affected by cancer.
  • Survivorship Topics - This section is broken down into three categories: physical topics (for example, the aftereffects of treatment, healthy behaviors, and physical rehabilitation); emotional topics (for example, support systems, fear, hope, and uncertainty); and practical topics (for example, communicating with your health-care team, life expectancy, and planning for your financial and medical future). Each topic has readings and answers to questions that you might have, plus available resources for you to use for more information.

The Web site also offers survivorship worksheets to help you manage the information important to your survivorship experience. The worksheets include:

  • Cancer Survivor's Medical Treatment Summary (19 pages)
  • Cancer Survivor's Health Journal (8 pages)
  • Practical Information Summary (21 pages)

American Cancer Society Cancer Survivors Network
www.cancer.org

Meet other survivors and find or offer support on the American Cancer Society’s Cancer Survivors Network (CSN). Find lodging, workshops, transportation, and other services and products for cancer patients, survivors, and loved ones. These tools are available at www.cancer.org:

  • Treatment Decision Tools - If you or your loved ones are researching treatments for a particular type of cancer, you can register for free cancer-treatment decision tools.

    Treatment decision tools can help you make an informed decision about your treatment. Using these tools, you can access a detailed analysis of your specific condition, uncover a statistical breakdown of treatment types, and pinpoint the exact topics you should discuss with your doctor.

    The NexProfiler Tool and Treatment Options Tool will help you learn how your diagnosis and test results may affect the treatment decisions that you will make with your physicians. You need to fill out a detailed questionnaire. After answering the questions, you will see a detailed treatment options report.

    Treatment decision tools are available for:
    • Bladder Cancer
    • Breast Cancer
    • Cervical Cancer
    • Colorectal Cancer
    • Hodgkin’s Disease
    • Kidney Cancer
    • Leukemia - Acute Lymphocytic (ALL)
    • Leukemia - Acute Myeloid (AML)
    • Leukemia - Chronic Myeloid (CML)
    • Melanoma • Multiple Myeloma
    • Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma
    • Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer
    • Oral Cancer
    • Ovarian Cancer
    • Pancreas Cancer
    • Prostate Cancer
    • Small Cell Lung Cancer
    • Testicular Cancer
    • Uterine Cancer

  • Cancer Survivors Network Talk Shows - Listen as cancer caregivers discuss their role in the decision-making process, how to confront the hard questions, and taking the caregiving experience day by day.
    Learn how three spouses of people with cancer overcame their isolation and learned to talk about what they are going through. How does a mother cope when her child has cancer? Listen as four mothers share their stories.

    What can you do to help a friend who has cancer? Three people talk about how they helped a friend deal with the day-to-day struggles and the life-and-death issues of cancer.

  • Personal Stories - Here are a few examples:
    During their 54 years of marriage, Gordon and Ann have shared many experiences, including cancer. Both of them and their son have been diagnosed with cancer and survived.

    Watching her father battle lung cancer was the hardest experience of Julie’s life. When he was diagnosed, she was determined to find a cure and give him hope.

    Martha’s son was diagnosed with cancer in 2001. She urges other parents with kids who have cancer to “give them confidence, to give them love, to be with them always.” (English transcript of a Spanish audio recording)

  • Member Webpages - Here are some examples:
    While caring for her father and husband, Gabor rarely took time to reenergize. Today, she offers these words of caution: “It does eventually catch up with you and before you know it, you’re feeling run down and even depressed. That doesn't help anyone. As a caregiver you need to know your limits and take some time for yourself.”

    Greta learned a lot about caregiving after her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. She offers the following advice to fellow caregivers: “LISTEN to your survivor. Don't assume that you know what he or she is thinking, feeling, or needing.”

    As a caregiver to her mother, one member (reinstones1) emphasizes the importance of being positive: “Don't dwell on negative prognoses, because doctors are fallible and can't predict how any given patient will respond to treatment.”

    Dianne_W notes that caregiving often means being an advocate: “I ask a lot of questions and fill in some of the details for the doctors that my husband might have forgotten.” Swimdad reminds caregivers not to forget to take care of themselves: “Take a break once in a while. Don't feel guilty. Go for a walk or to the gym.”

  • Discussion Boards and Chat - Share your own experiences about being a young survivor, coping with cancer, or a number of other cancer-related topics in CSN Discussion and Chat.
    The following are just a few of the discussions available:
    • Adult Survivors of Childhood Cancers
    • Anal Cancer
    • Brain Cancer
    • Cancer and the Workplace
    • Cervical Cancer
    • Child Cancers
    • Current Events
    • Esophageal Cancer
    • Inflammatory Breast Cancer
    • Insurance
    • Leukemia
    • Long-Term Effects of Treatment
    • Lung Cancer
    • Male Breast Cancer
    • Melanoma
    • Mouth Cancer
    • Ovarian Cancer
    • Pain
    • Pituitary Cancer
    • Rare Cancers
    • Sarcoma
    • Testicular Cancer
    • Vulvar Cancer

  • My Planner - My Planner keeps your most important information in one place. Here you can create a personal calendar, make a to-do list, save links to articles, and contact other registered users.

  • My Calendar- My Calendar helps you keep track of events, appointments, and American Cancer Society-related activities. You can also set up reminders for yourself, friends, and family. View your calendar by week or by month, add or change your appointments and set reminders.

  • My Email Groups- Discuss issues, ask and answer questions, and share stories in email groups. Join an existing group or create your own.

  • My Bookmarks- With this tool, you can save links to news articles, American Cancer Society event information, and other resources from the ACS site so you can easily find them again later. You can share the information you’ve found with others by emailing your bookmarks to friends and family.

  • My To-do List - Create, organize, and keep track of all your tasks in one place. You can send email reminders, set due dates, view your list of tasks, check off the tasks you’ve completed, and add new ones. You can also send yourself an email reminder.

The National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship Audio Toolbox
www.canceradvocacy.org

The Cancer Survival ToolboxÆ is a free audio program designed to help cancer survivors and caregivers develop practical†skills to deal with the diagnosis, treatment, and challenges of cancer. Access the Coalition’s Web site to listen to Toolbox†programs and find†resources to help you navigate the cancer survivorship experience.

The Cancer Survival Toolbox is a free, self-learning audio program that has been developed by leading cancer organizations to help people develop important skills to better meet and understand the challenges of their illness.

You can read or listen to the Toolbox in English and Spanish, and you can download the files to read or listen to later. Chinese transcripts are also available. The goal of the Toolbox is to help you develop practical tools in your daily life as you deal with your cancer diagnosis and treatment. Family members and caregivers can also use the Toolbox on behalf of a child or anyone else with cancer.

The Toolbox includes 10 modules:

  • Communicating - Communicating means letting someone else know clearly what you think and feel and learn what the other person thinks and feels.
  • Finding Information - Finding information means being able to use many of the different resources available to find information that will help you understand your kind of cancer and its treatment.
  • Making Decisions - Making decisions means being able to identify how you make decisions, how your style of decision-making can work or be improved, and how you can weigh the pros and cons of deciding about cancer treatment.
  • Solving Problems - Solving problems means being able to follow the steps needed to solve a difficult situation in your life or daily activities.
  • Negotiating - Negotiating means talking with people involved in your health care so that you can get what you need to have the best quality of life possible.
  • Standing Up for Your Rights - Standing up for your rights means learning to actively do something in your own best interest. This is also known as self-advocacy.
  • Topics for Older Persons - Cancer is a common problem for many older persons, but simply being older should not add to the burden of the disease. These topics for older persons focus on issues that have specific meaning for older cancer survivors. Examples of these issues include finding quality cancer care despite your age and other health problems, getting help paying for medications you need, and standing up for your rights in a health-care system that sometimes discriminates against the older person.
  • Finding Ways to Pay for Care - This module is designed to help underinsured or uninsured people who are having difficulty finding and getting the care that they need. People who have no health insurance or have problems with their insurance face special barriers to getting quality cancer care.
  • Caring for the Caregiver - Caring for the caregiver was developed specifically to provide resources and support for cancer caregivers to help them address the issues they face on an ongoing basis.
  • Living Beyond Cancer - Cancer survivorship is a day-to-day, ongoing process that begins with your diagnosis and continues through the rest of your life. Living beyond cancer†discusses a number of important issues that are specific to life beyond the diagnosis and initial treatment of cancer.

Discovery Health Cancer Tools
http://health.discovery.com/tools/center/cancer/tools.html

The Discovery Health Web site offers interactive tools that will help you better understand how different forms of the disease affect the body. The interactive body atlas provides in-depth demonstrations of more than 240 common diseases and disorders—from prostate to breast cancer to ear infections. You'll learn about their causes and treatments.

Cancer animations are available for breast cancer, breast reconstruction, breast self-exam, colon cancer, cyberknife radiosurgery, lung cancer, prostate cancer, prostate needle biopsy, prostate removal, and uterine cancer.

Interactive tools are also available to help you understand breast cancer, cervical cancer, ovarian cancer, prostate cancer, and uterine cancer.