Great op-ed in the NYT today

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  • Kerry S
    Kerry S Member Posts: 606 Member
    #22
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    GO Attitude Attitude Attitude!!!!!!
    I think the positive attitude folks won this discussion

    Today my joinery is 1,040 days long. I am going for a hell of a lot more.

    Kerry (old guy with a positive attitude problem and damn proud of it)
  • 2bhealed
    2bhealed Member Posts: 2,064 Member
    #23
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    lesvanb said:

    Thanks for this discussion!
    This is an interesting discussion. Thanks to all who have contributed here!

    In my own travels on this cancer path, I have run into many interesting beliefs that others have about what I am going through, the whys and hows and shoulds, as well as my own "deeply-held beliefs". I am naturally an optimist, though a skeptic too, and that has served me well in my relations with others– family, friends co-workers, my medical team, chemo nurses, even my surgeons who are tough nuts to get to crack a smile. I enjoy my life, and that helps me get up in the morning as well as deal with all the great difficulties and heartbreak with equanimity most of the time. However, especially during this recurrence or progression, I have had to make peace with the sobering fact that while I might experience great healing traveling this cancer path, I will still die, and the bright side is, I, more so than the "healthy" people, likely know what I will die from. My favorite book on this is Stephen Levine's "Healing into Life and Death".

    Cancer is a difficult and complex disease to treat in our time. There is no cure. I think that is why it carries more stigma than say, heart disease, and is more like the stigma associated with AIDS. This scares people, and so often with good intent, though with poor results, they try and help us make it go away.

    I believe there are many things that contribute to getting cancer, and there are many things that help it go dormant. In my own cancer beating program I try to, as much as possible, follow evidence-based programs, such as diet, exercise, supplements, meditation, complementary treatments using TCM, naturopath, anthroposophical medicine as well as western medicine. Most recently, trying to avoid chemo to deal with these slow growing lung mets because it would derail me from my immune enhancing program (and I do feel great), I was willing to do stereotactic radiation which derailed me less and got rid of the lung mets. I'm very happy buying quality of life time. Also, like any other human being, I harbor that secret, deeply buried belief that I will be the exception and escape death.

    When I was first diagnosed, the opinions of others on how I should go about "fighting" this disease, what I should eat, what treatments I should do, how I should be (which was to be positive and upbeat) was very disturbing to me. Stories would be offered up such as, "Cancer is a journey"(yah? you go buy the ticket!) or "my uncle cured his cancer by eating almonds", or even worse, "oh sorry to hear that – my sister died from colorectal cancer….." I felt that, not only did I have a cancer dx, I also had a case of death cooties! It took awhile to sort through all that. Now I know that I am the only one response-able for everything that happens to me in my life and it's up to me to respond, or not. Other's opinions are just that. My capacity for compassion for me, and for others, has increased.

    Many have already said something similar here, but I do believe we always have the choice to live our life as best we can, to be a decent human being, and it's up to us to do it. Cancer cannot take that from me.

    all the best, Leslie

    Wow
    Awesome post Leslie.

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