FreeCancerGuides.org
A free library for one of the hardest moments in a person's life.
FreeCancerGuides.org is a curated collection of plain-language ebooks and PDFs for cancer patients, their families, and the people caring for them. Everything here is free to read, free to download, and free of sign-ups, paywalls, or marketing tricks.
Why this exists.
A cancer diagnosis arrives with a thousand questions and almost no time to find the answers.
What does this stage mean? What happens at chemo? What should I eat? How do I tell my kids? Will my insurance cover this? Is this side effect normal? What questions should I be asking my doctor?
The information is out there — much of it written by excellent organizations — but it's scattered across dozens of websites, buried behind email forms, written in language designed for clinicians, or hidden in PDFs no search engine ranks well.
We built FreeCancerGuides.org to fix that. One place. Plain language. Organized by cancer type and by the questions patients actually ask. Free, because no one should have to pay to understand their own diagnosis.
What we do — and what we don't.
We curate. We gather trusted, freely shareable guides from established cancer organizations, medical institutions, and patient advocacy groups, and we organize them so they're easy to find.
We don't write medical content. We're not doctors, and nothing on this site is medical advice. Every guide is sourced from organizations whose job is to write that content carefully — places like the American Cancer Society, the National Cancer Institute, CancerCare, Cancer.Net, Macmillan Cancer Support, and disease-specific foundations. Our job is to make their work easier to find.
We don't sell anything. No products. No courses. No upsells. No data harvesting. The site is maintained solely by us and that's how we want to keep it.
What you'll find here.
Guides covering the most common cancers — breast, lung, colorectal, prostate, and many more — and the topics that come up alongside diagnosis and treatment: what to expect, how to manage side effects, nutrition, mental health, talking to family, caregiving, financial help, and life after treatment.
If a guide isn't here and you think it should be, tell us — we add resources based on what patients are actually asking for.
A note on language.
You won't find a lot of "fight," "battle," or "warrior" language on this site. We've heard from too many patients — especially those living with metastatic or recurrent cancer — that this framing makes them feel like they're losing a war when their bodies aren't cooperating. Cancer isn't a test of toughness. We try to write and curate in language that respects every patient, at every stage, in every outcome.
Who we are.
FreeCancerGuides.org is a small project run by myself, started after I was diagnosed was bladder and prostate cancer. It's maintained by just me.
How to support the work.
If the site has helped you or someone you love, here are the things that genuinely help us keep going:
Share it. Tell a friend, a support group, a nurse, a social worker. Most people find resources like this through word of mouth.
Suggest a resource. If you've found a guide that helped you and isn't on the site, send it our way.
Tell us what's missing. If you came looking for something and didn't find it, that's the most useful feedback we can get.
A small but important disclaimer.
Nothing on FreeCancerGuides.org is medical advice. The guides here are for general education and to help you have better-informed conversations with your care team. Your doctors know you, your history, and your specific situation. We don't. Please talk to them about anything you read here before acting on it.
If you are in crisis or thinking about harming yourself, please contact your local emergency services or a crisis line right away.
Get in touch.
Questions, suggestions, corrections, or a guide you'd like to see added? Email me at: jim@freecancerguides.org