Help, Hotlines and First-Responder Cancer Orgs
OVERVIEW
Most groups listed on this page are national organizations with hotlines and local branches offering immediate help from professionals and trained volunteers. Phone counselors may be cancer survivors themselves. Some larger organizations offer free phone support in several languages.
Some counselors may have less specialized -- or less up to date -- information about prostate cancer than you need. But their trained ability to listen may help you express your immediate concerns and begin to chart your course.
Others may have specialized knowledge but may also offer to sell you supplements and recommend a doctor who happens to be on their organization's board or in its network of influence.
Most likely you're aware of the need to seek genuine second opinions about your cancer treatments. So too it makes sense to obtain counselling and emotional support, if needed, from people who treat you as a person capable of rebuilding your own life and finding the best available treatment for you.
For obvious reasons we recommend bypassing hotline help from websites run by any drug company. Less obviously, helplines run by counselors hired by doctors or other professionals may nudge or direct cancer patients toward a pool or network of affiliated specialists. If you become dependent on their free advise you may end up paying extraordinary fees. Free help from an organization under the aegis of leading prostate cancer specialists is hard to beat. But if their advice to seek second and third opinions fades out when it comes to second opinions about them and those they recommend, watch out.
National Cancer Institute (NCI) USA
http://www.nci.nih.gov/help
1-800-4-CANCER
(1-800-422-6237)
TTY: 1-800-332-8615
Talk with an information specialist from the NCI's Cancer Information Service - within the United States, Monday through Friday 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. local time.
An excellent cancer hotline.
Go to website for live help, e-mail contact and snail mail address.
For information from NCI go to http://cancernet.nci.nih.gov/cancertopics
and to PDQ® - NCI's Comprehensive Cancer Database
American Cancer Society
http://www.cancer.org/
1-800-ACS-2345
To find your local ACS office click here.
PCRI Helpline
800-641-PCRI or 310-743-2110
[email protected]
David Derris , Educational Facilitator (in Hawaii) - 808-891-0209
Jan Manarite , Educational Facilitator (in Florida) - 239-395-0995
Jim O'Hara , Educational Facilitator (in Georgia) - 770-632-2899
http://www.blochcancer.org/
1-800-433-0464
4400 Main Street, Kansas City, MO 64111
816-WE BUILD (816-932-8453), 1-800-433-0464, Fax 816-931-7486
Fax 816-931-7486 . "Having cancer is bad enough! Not knowing what to do about it is even worse." Richard Bloch, of H&R Block tax preparation company, recovered from lung cancer in 1980. He founded the R.A. Bloch
Cancer Foundation. Hotline services are free. Focused on helping patients to conquer their disease.
The National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship, the only survivor-led advocacy organization working exclusively on behalf of people with all types of cancer and their families, is dedicated to assuring quality cancer care for all Americans.
International
UK
UK charity offering support
and information in the form of a Help Line and range of literature as
well as funding research into the disease. Telephone: 0845 300 8383
The UK's leading cancer information service. Aims to help people live with cancer by providing information and emotional
support for patients, their families and health professionals. It is recognized
as the foremost provider of cancer information in the United Kingdom.
3 Bath Place, Rivington Street, London EC2A 3JR Tel. 020 76969003 Freephone: 0808 800 1234. Offers support and information and a new Cancer in Your Language service which includes 12 additional national freephone helplines specifically for speakers of the country's most common ethnic minority languages:
- Arabic - 0808 800 0130
- Bengali - 0808 800 0131
- Cantonese - 0808 800 0132
- French - 0808 800 0133
- Greek - 0808 800 0134
- Gujarati - 0808 800 0135
- Hindi - 0808 800 0136
- Polish - 0808 800 0137
- Punjabi - 0808 800 0138
- Turkish - 0808 800 0139
- Urdu - 0808 800 0140
- Vietnamese - 0808 800 0141
NHS and the Royal Marsden Hospital, four languages.
listing of Support for UK patients in languages other than English.
Canada
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