Abstract
When a child is diagnosed with cancer, the lives of an entire family are changed forever. In an instant, the vision of your perfectly healthy and happy family and the future you envisioned gets wiped away and is replaced with foreign medical jargon, treatment protocols, and great fear and anxiety about the survival of your child. Providing psychosocial care for the child and the family along the cancer continuum, from the time of diagnosis through survivorship or end-of-life care, is vital to achieving optimal health and wellness. This chapter highlights the importance of psychosocial care for childhood cancer families and the perspectives of two parents who have lived the cancer journey as they cared for their son Mattie, who courageously battled osteosarcoma. As a result of their experiences, they share their conversations and approaches with psychosocial providers and also discuss their vision that inspired the national project that is underway to develop standards of psychosocial care for childhood cancer.
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Sardi-Brown, V.A., Brown, P.J. (2016). Parents’ Perspective on the Role of Psychosocial Care in Pediatric Oncology. In: Abrams, A., Muriel, A., Wiener, L. (eds) Pediatric Psychosocial Oncology: Textbook for Multidisciplinary Care. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21374-3_22
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21374-3_22
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