Thoughtful gifts for someone going through chemo/radiotherapy

[starfire88]

Hi all! I'm hoping some of you could help me, as I've started to think of Christmas gifts for people this year.

One of my relatives has just started chemotherapy and radiotherapy. She is in quite a bit of pain from it all, but she is responding well to it.

I'm trying to think of something thoughtful to give to her for Christmas, as she should (hopefully) be done with all the therapy by Christmas. Basically, I don't want to give her just a bath gift set like I usually do this year!

Any suggestions would be much appreciated. Thank you

Not sure of your budget but I got my mum a cashmere poncho when she was going through chemo in winter as she felt very cold a lot but was too uncomfy to wear anything tight. She wore it a lot I think.

If budget is less then some cashmere wristwarmers might be nice. Or a hat if that isn’t too tactless…

She’d probably need some natural body wash and bath products for sensitive skin after radiotherapy. shop.cancerresearchuk.org/cancer-care/skin-body-hair-care
A cotton exercise headband is useful to put under her cold cap and wear when her hair starts to thin. Also, a cooling pillow and a mini fan to help with hot flushes.
Cook ready meals are useful for when she’s too tired to cook www.cookfood.net/menu/meal-boxes/for-one

Food! Nice food was very gratefully received when I was in this situation x

Audible subscription
www.audible.co.uk/ep/giftcentre

Some sort of flowers by post subscription if they’ve got someone else at home to arrange them.

What type of chemo is/has she having? Has she/will she lose her hair? I lost my hair through radio NOT chemo and I really have a point clarifying about the distinction as getting me anything for a cold cap, picc line etc would have been pointless as my chemo was in tablet form. I had only heard of people getting chemo on drips and loosing all of their hair before I started talks about mine, but that's just a common misconception which I am doing everything I can to dispell. The only reason I lost my hair was because I have a brain tumour so the radio was to my head, had it been elsewhere on my body then I wouldn't have lost any head hair at all.

I'd echo the natural body products and/or "nice" food vouchers, or a subscription service that she doesn't already have but would use. There will be stuff that she's been told not to eat (cheese was a big one for me, although I did as I felt fine) so you can't be too prescriptive on the food front and right now she will be living day to day so won't really know how/what she will feel in a few months time. I expected to feel awful for the year of treatment but actually felt "fine" for 90% plus of the time and looked after my baby pretty much single handedly as it was during the 2020 so we couldn't have family travel to stay and help out as we'd originally intended. In short, my advice is don't assume things about how she will/should feel and buy an "appropriate response" present as I doubt many of the people that I encountered over that year even knew I was actively having chemo, unless I told them. Just get her something that you know she will like