The effects of cancer treatment on oncology nurses are often overlooked. People tend to forget that the nurses see the patients on a daily basis, spending long hours with them each day. They do the so-called dirty work of medicine, dealing with the physical side effects of treatment, responding first when a patient begins throwing up or seizing without explanation, comforting a patient in the wee hours of the morning when they are nauseated beyond reason. These nurses deserve so much credit for the work they put in and often suffer side effects of the cancer treatments as well. Perhaps the worse combination is being an oncology nurse and simultaneously the daughter of a cancer patient. A close family friend was in this situation for six long years as her father fought multiple myeloma. Not only did Sharyn Boissevain have to bear the emotional burdens of her own patients, but also the emotional anxiety that came along with her father’s battle against cancer. Another oncology nurse said, “It is so hard for them because they lose virtually all of their patients. They only deal with cancer patients. …one man came in yesterday who was her age. She started to cry. It was worse a couple of years ago, she said, when the sadness and grief became almost too much to bear.” 

Quotes borrowed from http://www.npr.org/blogs/mycancer/