Shit we deal with — Time Toxicity

Recently a fellow member of the Live from Stage 4 podcast team, Dr. Jill Tirabassi, recorded an episode reviewing a study examining the Time Burden in Patients With Metastatic Breast and Ovarian Cancer from Clinic and Home Demands (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12709373/) and since cancer care feels like a full time job to me, especially during times of progression, I decided to duplicate the record keeping for a 28 day cycle of the new to me IV chemotherapy, Taxol. Some of the results were surprising to me, others not so much.

Week 1

• treatment & procedure — 6 hours
• clinic visits — 45 min
• laboratories — 45 min
• Travel time — 1.5 hours
• taking/organizing/picking up medications — 1.3 hours
• scheduling & correcting appointments — 1 hour
• handling medical bills — 20 minutes
• managing symptoms — 3 hours
• monitoring health status — 1.3 hours
• seeking information about cancer — 6 hours
• arranging help or transportation — 2 hours

TOTAL for Week 1: 23.9 hours

Week 2

• treatment — 3 hours
• clinic visits — 0 min
• laboratories — 45 min
• Travel time — 1.5 hours
• taking/organizing/picking up medications — 1.3 hours
• scheduling appointments — 1 hour
• handling medical bills — 0 minutes
• managing symptoms — 4 hours
• monitoring health status — 1.3 hours
• seeking information about cancer — 4 hours
• arranging help or transportation — 0 min.

TOTAL for Week 2: 16.85 hours

Week 3

• treatment — 3 hours
• clinic visits — 0 min
• laboratories — 45 min
• Travel time — 1.5 hours
• taking/organizing/picking up medications — 1.3 hours
• scheduling appointments — 0 min
• handling medical bills — 0 minutes
• managing symptoms — 6 hours
• monitoring health status — 1.3 hours
• seeking information about cancer — 8 hours
• arranging help or transportation — 0 min

TOTAL for Week 3: 21.85 hours

Week 4

• treatment — 3 hours
• clinic visits — 0 min
• laboratories — 45 min
• Travel time — 1.5 hours
• taking/organizing/picking up medications — 1.3 hours
• scheduling & correcting appointments — 2 hours
• handling medical bills — 3.8 hours
• managing symptoms — 4 hours
• monitoring health status — 1.3 hours
• seeking information about cancer — 5 hours
• arranging help or transportation — 0 min.

TOTAL for Week 4: 22.65 hours

Total for the entire cycle: 85.25 hours