Cancer And Financial Toxicity

Cancer hits your pocket hard, really hard. It is one of the costliest illnesses that you can encounter.

Many of us get dragged into poverty because we are unable to work and so the loss of income proves catastrophic.

For many patients, being financially vulnerable was already their economic status before cancer so a diagnosis just makes matters worse. Financial distress becomes toxic.

Patients with the following types of diseases have a higher risk of financial toxicity:

I fit all of those.

Unsurprisingly the cost of cancer leads to a deterioration in the quality of life and fragile psychological well-being.

A distinction between direct and indirect costs can help understand the financial burden we experience. As Rosi-Schumacher et al (2023) note,

Direct costs are those related to medical costs of cancer treatment, side effect management, and survivorship care, whereas indirect costs are those related to treatment-induced disability, lost productivity, and lost wages.

Since my first diagnosis, I lost my career and was never able to go back to it. I worked as a teacher and having head and neck cancer changed everything. One day I was working, the next day I wasn’t and my income just disappeared.

I lost my tongue to cancer so that meant teaching was lost forever, a career I’d spent years and years developing and enjoying. I was plunged into financial hardship pretty quickly and my employer dismissed me because I was no use to them anymore.

Many cancer patients are unable to return to work and those that do can face various discriminations and so end up resigning.

My second diagnosis of incurable cancer happened at the start of the pandemic – as you can imagine, not a great time especially when my finances were at their lowest ebb.

There are other factors to consider too.

The harmful financial burden experienced by people with cancer can be dependent on the type of cancer you get.

Patients with head and neck cancer experience higher total medical expenses and higher out-of-pocket costs relative to their income than other cancer patients. Unfortunately for me, I’m in that bracket.

The medical and non-medical out-of-pocket expenses borne by cancer patients are significant and for some patients, managing the financial costs of cancer is nearly as stressful as receiving a cancer diagnosis itself!

Just the basic costs of associated with very ordinary living become unaffordable. The Micawber principle and cancer is as tough as it gets. Income equals outcome.

The financial burden of cancer is something people struggle to talk about because it hits home hard and can be humiliating. It certainly has been for me.