Holiday gift-buying can be hard and stressful during any phase of life. It can be especially challenging for people buying gifts for cancer patients, including those with mesothelioma. To help anyone struggling with this task, we searched for patients’ perspectives on the best gifts.
After reading countless forum posts, cancer center pages and personal stories, we pulled the best cancer patient gifts into the list below. We hope this list will help you brighten the holiday season for any loved ones battling cancer.
1: Fewer Chores With a Cleaning Service Gift Card
What Makes This Gift Great
Treatments like chemotherapy and radiation often leave patients exhausted. Tidying and cleaning the house can be the last thing any cancer patient has energy for. The gift of housecleaning can take several chores off a patient’s plate. A cleaning service may also help the patient feel more comfortable and relaxed in their tidied home.
2: A Surprise Message From Their Favorite Band or Celebrity
What Makes This Gift Great
This gift can add a unique lightness to your loved one’s holiday season. Many cancer patients understandably struggle with depression and anxiety. These conditions can make it tough to find moments of joy. A personal message from their favorite band or celebrity could be a surprising and heartening bright spot. It might also provide a rare moment of complete distraction, allowing them to not think about cancer for a few minutes.
Does the cancer patient in your life love “The Office”? Imagine how surprised and delighted they might be if Kate Flannery (Meredith) sent an encouraging message. One recipient of a surprise video from a favorite band called it “more than [the patient] could have ever dreamed of.”
3: Food They Actually Want to Eat
What Makes This Gift Great
Cancer treatment can change a person’s sense of taste or smell. This may make cooking difficult. The patient may also lose interest in foods they used to love. Thoughtful gifts can help make it easier for patients to eat nourishing food that they enjoy.
Gift cards for food delivery services let the patient choose exactly what they want from nearby restaurants. A grocery delivery gift card can ensure the patient has money dedicated to good nutrition that comes right to their door. Both options give the patient flexibility to try different foods when an everyday meal seems unappetizing.
4: High-Quality Self-Care Through Professional Massage
What Makes This Gift Great
Cancer treatment can leave patients feeling physically drained. It may also leave them with pain in various places. Experts recommend massage therapy as a way to help manage these symptoms.
But cost can be a concern, especially around the holidays. Patients may worry about spending money on a massage, despite its potential benefits. So, friends or loved ones can give them a gift certificate. The gift of massage can help reduce anxiety, depression, pain and fatigue. It may also help improve the patient’s sleep.
5: A Personalized Care Package
What Makes This Gift Great
Every cancer patient has their own stressors and ways of managing them. A personalized care package allows you to tailor the gift to the patient’s needs and preferences. Comfy clothes like fluffy socks, soft slippers, and a luxurious robe can increase relief in an uncomfortable situation. A book of crosswords or Sudoku may help distract a puzzle lover.
6: Fun Plans for the Near Future
What Makes This Gift Great
A cancer diagnosis can bring normal life to a screeching halt. Previously planned trips or vacations may get rescheduled to make room for treatment, and getaway funds may turn into treatment funds. A gifted trip or experience can provide cancer patients with a much-needed break from their disease and its many implications. It can also help patients make cherished memories that do not focus on cancer or its treatment.
Trips can be expensive, especially if they include loved ones. Luckily, several organizations help cancer patients take fun trips with their families at little to no cost. Some go so far as to plan every detail and provide spending money. Nominating a loved one for a paid family trip is a massive gift that could bring so much joy.
7: Comfy Clothes
What Makes This Gift Great
Cancer symptoms and treatments themselves can cause discomfort, but some clothing choices may make things worse. In cold infusion rooms, patients often welcome comfy layering cardigans, soft tees and fuzzy slippers. Custom-made clothes may help patients navigate their ports and drains more easily.
Carefully selected clothes can make a patient’s treatment experience much more comfortable.
8: Soft Blankets With Special Meaning
What Makes This Gift Great
Hospitals and infusion centers are notoriously cold, but a plush fleece blanket can help a patient stay comfortable. Will they stay even cozier if the blanket is printed with a life-size collage of friends and family? Probably not. But a photo collage fleece blanket might improve a cancer patient’s spirits in a hospital or at home.
9: Cancer-Conscious Skincare
What Makes This Gift Great
Cancer treatments can dry out and irritate the patient’s skin. Fragrances and additives in normal skincare products may not soothe this irritation. Some may make it worse. Face and body care products without dyes, fragrances or preservatives can help. But they may be tough to track down.
A cancer-conscious skincare gift can help lessen irritation and save patients the brain drain of hunting down good products themselves.
10: Infusion-Friendly Distractions
What Makes This Gift Great
Chemotherapy and immunotherapy infusions can take hours. Patients may pass the time more easily with a variety of distractions. A tablet or e-reader can hold a library’s worth of books in a very small space. For patients who like streaming, comfortable headphones with a long-lasting battery may make all the difference.
Does your recipient have a mobile device but no streaming services? There are gift cards for that. Does your recipient hate technology? A coloring book for grown-ups with a nice set of coloring pencils or watercolors might provide a welcome brain break.
11: Quality Time Spent Together
Going through cancer treatment and recovery can be very isolating, especially if patients don’t live close to family and friends. Sometimes all they want is to spend time with their loved ones and get their mind off things. Gifting “quality time” may sound simple, but it’s often more special to its recipient than a material item.
Think of all your loved one’s favorite hobbies and all the ways you enjoy spending quality time with them. For some inspiration, we recommend planning a movie or game night, doing arts and crafts or finding a recipe to cook or bake together.
12: Whatever You Would Normally Get
Some patients understandably do not want cancer-centric gifts. They want you to give them the gift you would have chosen if they did not have cancer. This may be the best gift on this list. Why? Because a thoughtful gift that has a personal touch from a concerned friend may be all a cancer patient needs to know you care.
