Cancer Recovery 2

I understand that a diagnosis of cancer is like a slap in the face. Then the carpet gets pulled out from under your feet. A roller coaster appears and you’re thrown up, down, and around so you have no sense of direction anymore. When the roller coaster stops, you find yourself  in a swamp with no clear path to follow.

I’ve experienced all this and heard others say the same: it’s a nightmare.

What saved me was my support system. My husband, family, and friends came to my rescue and coached me along until I found the road to recovery.

If you know someone who is facing a cancer diagnosis, please be kind to them. The act of love and friendship may just save their life.

Optimism and Quality of Life

Positive thinking seems to be in the news a lot lately thanks to the new book by Barbara Ehrenreich called Bright Sided; I haven’t read this book, but I’ve read articles about it and heard the author interviewed on the radio. Although there were times after my diagnosis of cancer in 1986 when I had similar thoughts to the author, I’m happy to say that I’m long past that mode of thinking. I believe I would not have been cancer free for the last 22 years if I continued to think along those lines.

I agree with one of Ms. Ehrenreich’s statements which is that “artificial positive thinking” doesn’t work. In order to think positive, we need to let go of negative thinking and BE positive. I spent many years with depression and negative thinking, so it wasn’t easy for me to make that switch. After cancer I spent time with a psychiatrist, and did a course in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy to help me change my unrealistic, destructive thoughts to those which are constructive and life giving. I will always be grateful to my support team for helping me to stick with it when the going got tough.

I know people who mean well when they say “Think positive” to someone facing a life threatening illness, but it’s unreasonable to expect people to smile when they’re feeling down. It doesn’t make sense to pretend that cancer and cancer treatment are positive experiences when we’re feeling miserable and facing an uncertain future; I had a huge range of negative thoughts and emotions when I was going through surgery and chemotherapy. I now know this is a normal reaction, but at the time I felt alone with my fears.

It’s important to recognize and respect the way people handle their individual journey and support them in the best way we can. When I faced my mortality I put myself in a pine box; it was the people around me who helped me to get out of it as I didn’t have the energy at the time. With help I learned to take one day at a time and with baby steps I gradually regained the strength I needed to turn my life around.

It helped me to live in the moment, to find something positive every day, no matter how small, to be able to look beyond cancer treatment, and see something to live for. My family and friends helped me a great deal as I learned to think about me and my purpose in life.

I know my life has improved as a result of the valuable work I’ve done to become more optimistic and resilient. Some people may choose to resist positive thinking but I’m happy that I changed; my quality of life is so much better.

Genes vs. environment

Here are some excerpts from an article about nature vs. nurture written by Andre Picard in the Globe and Mail today:
“Your genes do not – except in rare cases – condemn you to heart disease, or protect you from its ravages.
Rather, the environment you live in, your lifestyle choices and the treatments you take can override genetic predispositions, one of the country’s top researchers says.
‘Environment often trumps genetics,’ Robert Hegele, director of the cardiovascular genetics laboratory at the Robarts Research Institute in London, Ont., said yesterday.
……He said about 5 per cent of people are ‘exquisitely susceptible’ to heart disease because they have a genetic mutation.
At the other end of the scale are people who do seemingly everything wrong – smoke, drink, eat badly, remain inactive – and live well into their 90s in seeming good health. He pointed to former British prime minister Winston Churchill as a poster boy for this group.
However, Dr. Hegele said, the other 90 per cent of the population ‘fall somewhere else on the bell curve’ and they have a lot more control over their heart health than they realize.
…… ‘While genetic testing is increasingly providing valuable information, clinicians and patients themselves already have the tools to act,’ he said. ‘No matter what all the high-tech stuff reveals, the answers are still simple for most people.
Those simple things include classic lifestyle choices, such as not smoking, eating a healthy diet and regular physical activity. Not-quite-so-simple matters like a person’s income, education, housing status and physical environment matter too,’ Dr. Hegele said.”
In other words, if your ancestors all died of heart disease, it could be the gene that was transferred down the line, but the disease could also have been caused by the lifestyle choices and attitudes that were learned from parents and other family members.
I think it’s important to take a look at the choices we’re making so we’re not just doing things because they’ve always been that way. These choices form our environment to a certain extent for good or bad and it takes awareness to change them if they need improvement.
Listen to your gut when making decisions as the issues are complex and you have to do what’s right for you.

Survivorship

Talking about survivorship is a good thing – it means not everyone is dying from cancer; talking about survivorship allows us to talk about how people are living.

Survivorship issues depend a lot on what stage the cancer is at when it’s discovered. In 1987 I felt as if my body had given itself up to cancer, and I had to figure out a whole new way to live; I was convinced I would die if I didn’t change the “soup” or the “terrain” of my body.

Unfortunately we all know people who appear to do everything right and still die of cancer; there are no easy answers and there is no single answer. Cancer works in mysterious ways and it’s no wonder there’s so much fear surrounding the big “C”. I believe this fear is a huge part of the problem. When I was living in fear, I felt helpless and hopeless; the emotional roller coaster flung me around on a 24/7 basis, and my brain was too paralyzed to make sense of what was happening.

My health didn’t improve until I allowed other people to help me focus on the present moment. I began to accept the idea that the past was over, nothing could be changed, and not to think about the future because it was too scary. Focusing on the present day seemed to be all that I could cope with, but that felt good once I got used to it.

Working on one day at a time, my health became my number one priority and the fear of cancer diminished. My survivorship skills have kept me well, and those single days have added up to 22 years post cancer now.

I believe there must be a way to beat cancer; we can each do our part if we put good health high on our list of priorities. We can make smart choices about nutrition, exercise, sleep, and stress management which will help us to reach our best possible state of wellness.

If we all stand up to cancer we can win!

Cancer prevention is a reality

The Go Public cancer forum in Ottawa had many high powered, interesting speakers; most of them talked about the prevention of cancer as well as cancer control.

I’ve attended many cancer conferences, and I’ve never heard so much talk about cancer prevention. The figures are amazing; in general they range from 30% to 50%, with someone saying that 95% of cancer is preventable.

Why are so many people dying if we know that cancer can be prevented? Cancer rates are rising not falling – if we continue as we are, then 1 in 2 males and 1 in 3 females will have cancer by 2050. Today most people know someone who has cancer and we are all affected by this; imagine what it will be like when the rates are so much higher. Our thinking has to change if we’re serious about preventing cancer and reducing cancer deaths by half in the next generation.

It’s amazing we haven’t figured this out yet with all the money that goes in to research, but I know the fact that we’re human beings is a big part of the problem. For example, we all know about the foods that are bad for us; but as Dr. Andrew Weil said on the Larry King show, people eat what’s cheap and accessible. It’s easy to expect the health care system to fix the problems we bring on ourselves by over eating bad chemicals in food, and being a nation of people who love the taste of fats, oils, salt and sugar.

Changing habits can be difficult if we’re not committed. I know – I faced my mortality in 1987 with breast, colon and skin cancer. I would be dead by now if I hadn’t made a commitment to get well, and worked hard at improving my diet, exercise, relaxation, and stress levels.

I think one key factor is that I had a coach to help me. I wanted to change, but I didn’t believe I could do it, and I know many people who struggle with the same issue. If people are serious about wanting to change, and they partner with a coach, either a professional or a friend, they can achieve so much more than they can achieve alone.

Preventing cancer involves making healthy choices for what we eat, how we exercise, how long we sleep, and how well we manage our stress levels. These are the main factors, but many other issues are involved. I believe it’s important to let go of what gets in the way of us living a healthy life; the past is over and cannot be undone. We can all start now – right here – right now and go forward to a healthy future where we love ourselves enough to take good care of the mind, body and spirit we were blessed with when we were born.

Take action now so that you and your loved ones will not be surprised with a diagnosis of cancer. Start from here to go forward and find your own way to build a healthy life. The time to act is now!

Support the CBCF Run for the Cure

I have been a CBCF volunteer and a fan for many years because I think the CBCF provides people with the energy to take action and do whatever it takes to overcome breast cancer.
I was diagnosed with Stage II breast cancer in 1986 & skin and colon cancer in 1987. I had the 3 strikes and you’re out mentality, and I felt my life was over.
Fortunately I had great support from family, friends and my health care team; I also had a supportive husband who coached me to regain my health.
I made many lifestyle changes:
I replaced all the junk and high fat foods with fruits, and vegetables etc. I ask myself “Is this good for my health?” before making food choices.
I make sure I walk every day; having a dog helps to get me out the door.
I practice deep breathing, deep relaxation, and good sleeping habits.
I manage my stress levels and work through negative emotions, so each day I can feel positive and hopeful for the future.
One day at a time I have managed to be cancer free for 22 years and I appreciate life so much more than before my diagnosis. I hope that people who have not had cancer can learn from those of us who have, and make healthy lifestyle choices so they will stay well.
Authorities are now saying that 30% to 50% of cancer can be prevented; add to that the 25% of cancers that can be cured if they are detected early, and we can really have an impact on reducing this disease if we choose to live well.

Can stress cause cancer?

These are some excerpts from an article by Carly Weeks in the Globe and Mail paper today:
“Can stress cause cancer, or even hasten a patient’s death? It’s a daunting, emotionally charged question with no simple answers, but it represents a growing field of research that scientists hope could eventually lead to breakthroughs in cancer treatment.
The premise driving the theory is that stress has been found to weaken the body’s immune response and cause some physiological changes, such as the secretion of certain hormones, that could contribute to the development of cancer.
Traditionally, much of the study in this field has focused on the effects of stress on the immune system.
But now, attention is shifting to the relationship between stress and gene function, an area many scientists believe is the key to unravelling this mystery.”
… “led by Suzanne Conzen, associate professor of medicine in the Ben May Department for Cancer Research at the University of Chicago” , the researchers studied the stress levels of mice living in groups as they normally do, or alone which creates a stressful situation for them.
“The study provides some of the strongest evidence to date that an individual’s stress level may be linked to the progression of cancer. But the quest to understand why – and, perhaps more importantly, how those factors might be used to help prevent or treat cancer – is still in its infancy.”
“This is an area that has a long way to go in terms of understanding how these factors play out in humans,” said Caryn Lerman, a professor of psychiatry and scientific director of the Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania.”
“Stress doesn’t give you cancer, but it is a risk factor like genetic differences, like environmental carcinogens,” said David Spiegel, associate chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University School of Medicine. “There are a whole bunch of risk factors. Not everybody that smokes tobacco gets lung cancer.”

This is a comment about my personal experience which I posted after the article on the Globe and Mail website:
I’m convinced that stress increases the growth of cancer cells, so I’m very pleased to see research being done in this area. What this theory allows people to do is to manage their stress levels so they give the body a fighting chance to overcome cancer. If stress is using up much of the resources in the body, then the normal process which controls the growth of cancer is compromised, and the cancer takes over.
I learned about the link between stress and cancer from books and some health professionals when I was going through chemo in 1987.
At first I blamed myself for having cancer, which didn’t feel very good at all. Then after a course in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, I had an Aha moment. I thought that if my high stress levels had fuelled my cancer to grow, I could possibly reduce the growth of cancer by lowering my stress level.
I figured I had nothing to lose and everything to gain. By managing my stress, I hoped to live long enough to see my children grow up, and I’ve managed to be cancer free since 1987.
It’s a simple idea but not an easy one and required much work on my part to change my stress levels, as well as building in a healthy diet, exercise, and good sleep patterns.
I have to say that every day is a blessing and my appreciation of life is so much greater than before my cancer diagnosis when I took my health for granted.

Depression Increases Cancer Patients’ Risk of Dying

Depression Increases Cancer Patients’ Risk of Dying – this is the title of an article on the American Cancer Society website by David Sampson, Director, Medical & Scientific Communications. It relates to a study by Jillian Satin, MA, of the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, Canada, and her colleagues who analyzed all of the studies to date they could identify related to the topic.
Jillian Satin says: “We found an increased risk of death in patients who report more depressive symptoms than others and also in patients who have been diagnosed with a depressive disorder compared to patients who have not.”
The article goes on to say: “The investigators note that the actual risk of death associated with depression in cancer patients is still small, so patients should not feel that they must maintain a positive attitude to beat their disease. Nevertheless, the study indicates that it is important for physicians to regularly screen cancer patients for depression and to provide appropriate treatments.”
As a cancer survivor with a history of undiagnosed depression, I know how important it was for me to be treated for depression when I was going through chemotherapy and thought my life was over. Fortunately I was able to work through depression and negative thinking with the help of a psychiatrist at UBC. She offered me drugs which I refused, and instead I opted for a course in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). Along with other tools, I was able to turn my life around and regain my health. I still have bouts of depression from time to time, but they are short lived compared to the bouts I had before CBT.

I know people with cancer who say they don’t believe in positive thinking, and health care providers who say patients should not have to “think positive”. I agree that pretending to be positive when you’re feeling stressed or depressed is not a wise thing to do. However, I believe I would have died long ago if I hadn’t managed to convert my negative thinking and depression into positive thinking and hope, so that I would live to see my children grow up.

The key is to do the work to get rid of negative thoughts and depression. CBT has been proven to be an effective way to control depression, but it takes a willingness to work on it and requires an element of support, as it is very difficult to do this alone.

I know how hard it is to be in the depths of depression; I’ve been there, with thoughts of being so miserable I wanted my life to end. Usually what happened to break that cycle was for me to find something else to focus on, and force myself to put time and effort into getting busy with that. Gradually I could feel myself in a bit of an upward spiral and with sheer determination I would climb up out of the deep, dark, pit where I had previously seen myself trapped. It was helpful to find something to work towards and to think about besides the bottom of that pit.

When I hear people say “I don’t believe in positive thinking” it makes me cringe, because I would not want to go back to that state where I was such a negative thinker. My life has improved 100% since I learned to see things in a different light and focus on positive thoughts every day.

I ask the question “What do you want more of in your life?” If the answer is love, peace, and joy, then I encourage people to do what it takes to reach out for those things which bring happiness.

Cancer is a cruel disease, but it can also teach us some valuable lessons. My experience has taught me to live one day at a time, and to pay attention to the good things in life. I have many positive emotions which feel so much better than the negative emotions I used to spend time with. Now when those negative emotions appear, I am able to process them and let them go, so they can be replaced with love, compassion, and forgiveness for me as well as for others.

Yoga program helps people with cancer

Yoga Thrive is a program designed to help people recover from cancer; participants are “calmer, more limber and stronger than before” says writer Hayley Mick in the Globe and Mail recently. Yoga Thrive instructors are specially trained with regard to cancer and will modify stretches to accommodate people who have had surgery, etc.

Exercise is good for people recovering from cancer, even in the early stages of treatment as long as they’re careful not to overdo it. Yoga will provide the added benefit of the mind-body connection so that people are more in tune with listening to the body if it is saying “No”. Gentle yoga exercise includes deep breathing to promote relaxation, which is a valuable tool in cancer recovery.

Hopefully the Yoga program will produce a similar effect to the dragon boat movement started in 1996 in Vancouver, BC by Dr. Don MacKenzie and a team of energetic breast cancer survivors. Abreast in a Boat (AIAB) was created to show that it’s still possible to exercise after breast cancer surgery. It has been a huge success and women all over the world find enrichment in their lives because of it. Dragon boating provides people with physical exercise, a support group, camaraderie, entertainment, travel, a purpose in life, and much more.

It’s no wonder that recurrence of cancer is reduced when people get together to exercise. Physical exercise alone reduces recurrence; add to that the interaction of people in a similar situation, and the emotional, psychosocial, and spiritual benefits increase as well. I hope the Yoga program catches on and that more people will benefit from learning to control cancer and raise their quality of life.

Cancer does not have to be a death sentence. Just ask the members of Abreast in a Boat and they will tell you their lives have been enriched following a diagnosis of cancer. If it is diagnosed early enough, cancer can be a wake up call and provide an opportunity to make the most of each day.

Clinical breast exam controversy

A recent study discusses the “controversy about whether adding clinical breast examination (CBE) to mammography improves the accuracy of breast screening.” The study was published online on August 31, 2009 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
The study of women in the Ontario Breast Screening Program (OBSP) discusses the rise in false positives when women have a clinical breast exam at the same time as the mammography exam. The conclusion of the study is that “women should be informed of the benefits and risks of having a CBE in addition to mammography for breast screening.”
This is an interesting study with a worthwhile conclusion. My concern with any controversy is that it adds to the confusion felt by some women, who may throw up their hands and stay away from screening altogether. I hope this won’t be the case as I believe that women, and men, should be tuned in to the importance of the early detection of cancer.

I understand the fear that women experience when they’re recalled for follow up after a mammogram or when a lump is found on a clinical exam. I was diagnosed with advanced breast cancer in 1986 because screening mammography was not available and my doctor refused to order a mammogram. This resulted in a greater load on the health care system than if it had been detected earlier since it involved surgery, chemotherapy, and longer follow up. There was also a much larger fear factor for my self and my family than if the cancer had been found sooner.

I think we need to do more to help women get through “false positives” without fear and anxiety. The point remains that it’s better to find cancer earlier than later, and to reassure women that it’s better to go through a false positive diagnostic process than to take a chance on letting an unfound cancer grow larger.

There are a couple of basic issues which contribute to false positive mammograms. As a mammographer, I have explained to many women about the challenges of reading mammograms. Breast tissue is formed in branches like grapes so that if the branches are on top of each other in the images, then it’s difficult to tell what’s there; women may be asked to return for further X-rays, either coned, a different angle, or ultrasound. This does not mean there is something wrong with the tissue, but that the radiologist needs more information to make an accurate diagnosis. Similarly, looking at images of dense breast tissue is more challenging as it’s like looking through a tree full of leaves in the summer. As women age, the dense tissue turns to fat and mammograms are much easier to read as they are more like looking through a tree in the winter.

If women are educated to know that the early stages of a mammography work up are a matter of gathering information, then it will relieve some anxiety. False positives from CBE’s are usually from feeling a lump or thickening. Since 80% of breast lumps are benign, it makes sense that they can be viewed calmly if they can be viewed as probable cysts or normal breast lumps, not cancerous growths.

Breast self examinations (BSE) are often not recommended due to the fear factor of false positives, and I hope that CBE’s will not be viewed in the same light. Mammograms are the gold standard in the detection of breast cancer; however, they are not perfect and I believe it’s in everyone’s best interest to continue to do both monthly BSE’s and annual CBE’s with a health professional.

Beat a family history of cancer

If you can fall into a cancer diagnosis because of family history, you can fall out of it by making some lifestyle changes.

In the book ANTI cancer – A NEW WAY OF LIFE, by David Servan-Schreiber, it says that “Genetic factors contribute to at most 15 percent of mortalities from cancer. In short there is no genetic fatality. We can all learn to protect ourselves.”

I heard a University professor give a lecture a few years ago. He started off by saying he should have delivered his lecture the previous year, but he was busy having a heart attack at the age of 52. Apparently all the male members of his family had heart attacks at the age of 52; I wondered how much of the heart attack was caused by the stress of expectation.

I’ve heard many people say they have a number of relatives with cancer, so they believe they have no choice but to succumb to this fate as well.

My parents both died at the age of 46 and I was moving in that direction until I changed the thoughts in my subconscious mind. I had 3 types of cancer in 1987 and have been cancer free since then because I did some work on my beliefs and my lifestyle choices. These choices are mostly about good nutrition, exercise, sleep, and stress management and there are many other factors to consider on a personal level.

The power of the mind is amazing in creating our health outcomes. I’m convinced I would have died long ago from cancer if I hadn’t given my body a “live” message instead of the “die” message which was programmed in to my thoughts.

It seemed as if it would be a lot of work at the time, but once I got my head around making the changes it actually wasn’t as much work as I expected it to be. In any event, it’s a small price to pay for seeing my family grow up, and the reward has been living for 22 years in good health.