When your partner is diagnosed with cancer, there’s no handbook, no checklist, and no magic words. You’re thrown into an emotional hurricane where love, fear, guilt, and helplessness collide.
Being there for Justine during her treatment taught Dan a lot about what support looks like. Some days, he was making soup or grabbing an extra blanket. Other days, he was quietly organizing medical paperwork while she slept through chemo. Over time, Dan started to notice the difference between the things that were clear and actionable, and the moments that were heavy and uncertain. Through it all, he realized how much value there is in simply being present, even when you don’t have the perfect answer.
We asked Dan what that looked like in real life…
What Did I Do to “Be There” for Justine?
“Being there” for Justine was probably one of the more complex components of her treatment I had to personally grapple with. For me, there were essentially two “buckets” that encompassed what “being there” meant:
The Obvious Things
There were a lot of (what I would refer to as) obvious things.
Is she hungry? Let me make her food.
Is she cold in bed? Let me get her more blankets.
The “obvious things” are about listening. They’re about hearing a need and attending to it—and they’re not hard in concept.
Everyone’s experience is different in the medical world, and I don’t think it’s accurate to necessarily brand ours as the gold standard. I can’t tell you exactly what to do, but I can tell you that your partner will tell you what they need and, when they do, it’s your responsibility as their caregiver to listen to them.
Everyone, but women specifically, face a level of difficulty when it comes to communication in medical scenarios. Medical professionals may not understand what a patient is trying to convey; they may jump to an approach based on previous experience not relevant to this specific patient’s case, or (in the worst case) they may not listen to a patient’s clear expression.
The obvious things are an easy way to make someone going through something difficult feel heard.
So make the soup they’re craving.
Buy the electric blanket when they say they’re cold.
Drive the extra ten minutes to get the brand drug they’re convinced works better than the off-brand.
Ultimately, it boils down to making them feel heard and understood, and that is so vitally important in regard to “being there” for someone.
The Hard Things
I’ll be honest, I don’t really know how to encapsulate the “hard things” verbally, but I do have an example:
When Justine started going through chemo, she would get her infusion on Tuesday, the effects would hit her Tuesday night, and then she would essentially sleep until Friday. That’s not an exaggeration, she would literally sleep for roughly 2.5 days.
This was the hardest part for me.
What do you do to help someone who’s literally not conscious?
Clearly her body is suffering. Clearly it needs something (presumably rest, but what else?!).
Clearly there must be something I can do.
The hard things are hard because there’s not an obvious answer.
How do you be there for someone when they’re barely “there” themselves?
The best answer for us, I found, was utilizing that quiet time to figure out what I can do when she wakes back up.
- Review doctor notes
- Get medicines organized
- Organize her space so she can recover comfortably
- Prep food she’ll be able to eat
I love to cook, and I was lucky enough to have close friends and family send me cookbooks specifically written for people going through cancer treatment. I took this time to review notes from doctor’s appointments and see what vitals were down for Justine.
Her iron is low? Great, let me go through this cookbook and work on recipes that she’ll enjoy and that will increase her iron intake for when she wakes back up and needs food.
Being there for someone in the hard moments involves a lot of thinking on your feet and utilizing your skills to improve their condition.
The answers aren’t easy and they aren’t obvious, and they differ wildly from case to case, but once you discover them, you’ll be able to bring an undisputable level of value to someone in a way not many others can.
What Did I Do to Take Care of Myself?
This is admittedly a harder question for me to answer, and maybe process.
I don’t know if I was the best at taking care of myself and I think that’s something plenty more people struggle with than just me. I am very much still working on this, and still recovering from it all, and still learning how to allow myself to be okay with that.
I would say, to start this off: allow yourself the grace to struggle with this.
There’s no map. No path. No easy answers. And that’s okay.
You’re not alone in this struggle, and it’s alright to feel lost and frustrated.
What I will say is that this life event fell at an interesting moment for me personally. After a few years of working at a dead-end job with a pretty depressing work environment, I had decided to leave and get a new job with much better work-life balance and people who presented a more positive atmosphere.
It opened me up to a mindset of growth and eagerness to improve myself after years of feeling insignificant and belittled; feelings that can definitely be intensified when watching someone you love go through something so difficult and feeling helpless.
During this time I:
- Started and finished an online Master’s degree in Legal Studies
- Started studying wine through the WSET program, a passion I’d held for a long time
- Began therapy and painting lessons
- Bought a house and planned a wedding
I also hung out with friends, exercised, and went to concerts: things that comforted me in the immediate.
But when I think about what truly nourished me, the central theme was this:
Keeping my focus on the horizon and working on how wonderful and breathtaking I wanted life to be after her treatment, for both her and myself.
It’s easy to feel hopeless in the moments of infusions, medical tests, and surgeries. So immerse yourself in activities and focuses that look beyond them and highlight the excitement and beauty of life post-treatment.
Find the things that remind you:
Cancer cannot take away the vitality and love for life you have.
Final Thoughts
There’s no single roadmap for being a partner or caregiver during cancer. Every moment brings new questions, emotions, and decisions. What matters most is staying present: tuning in, responding with care, and doing your best with what you know. Some days, that means showing up with soup. Other days, it means sitting quietly beside the person you love, even when there’s nothing to say. Your presence, imperfect, human, and real, makes all the difference.
If you’re in the thick of it right now, with someone you love navigating treatment, let this be your permission to both show up for them and care for yourself in ways that feel meaningful.
Be patient with the obvious things. Stay open during the hard things. And don’t forget to look up to that horizon you’re moving toward, together.