ABSTRACT
This ebook is about treatment and what it does to people – patients, doctors and relatives – and to their relationships and wider lives. Treatment has, at times, as Julia Darling observes in her poem ‘Chemotherapy’ (quoted from above), unimaginable effects on us: on our bodies, but also on how we live and understand ourselves in the context of our lives. For doctors to treat well it is important to realise that treatment can lead to patients feeling confused, distressed and dislodged from their lives not just by the physical changes brought about by treatment but also by how it changes their understanding of their bodies. It is not possible for doctors to anticipate all of the possible changes that episodes of treatment may bring about for patients, but this chapter aims to explore some of the ways that those changes may be experienced by patients.
