Staying positive.

foxhd

I'll tell you what. Here is how I do it. And I ALWAYS do it. For the last 40 years...
When most people are asked ," How are you". They answer, "Not bad." To me, I think,( Gee if only they whey felt worse, they might be happier.) They have already set themselves up in a negative state. Why not say. " I am great, or fine, or excellent, or something positive? It is rare. Right?....Karma...Set the tone...Life is too short to be negative. Make it positive... Think about this. I share this all the time... You walk up to a building and several doors are in front of you... Could be a church, school, city hall. Doesn't matter. Not all of them are unlocked and allow you to enter. If you walk up to a door and it is locked there might be a sign on the door. It always says, "Use other
door."......To me that says,.."What are you a moron? This is locked! Are you stupid?....USE OTHER DOOR!!!! Negative, negative. You haven't even gone in to do your business and they told you that you are a jerk....Anyway... I have only seen this once in my life.... At a small community hospital. There were double doors in front. One set was locked. The other door had a sign. It said, ....."Please use this door."......No skin off anyones ****...no insult.. Polite... Positive.... Made you feel welcome......Never forgot it... Point is...Stay Positive about everything....Worrying and being negative does NO one any good.... When I go to the oncology clinic and am asked ,"How are you doing?" I always answer, Excellent and getting better." Not delusional. Not unrealistic. Just staying positive. Let this rub off.

ripper

Yup!
Fox,

I don't know how many times a week I say this one when asked how I'm feeling/doing, "Feeling Better Everday!" I agree with everything you stated. -Ripper

garym

ripper said:

Yup!
Fox,

I don't know how many times a week I say this one when asked how I'm feeling/doing, "Feeling Better Everday!" I agree with everything you stated. -Ripper

Don't forget laughter...
A life long friend of my father when asked "How ya doing today Bill?" would always answer "Still sucking air!!" and then break out in a belly laugh so contagious you couldn't help but join in. His nick-name was Wild Bill and it suited him to a T. When he was in his early 80's I asked him how he stayed so "up" with all that ailed him, he said "That's easy, I save my prayers for the morning.". What do you mean I asked and he said "At my age if I prayed when I'm worn down at the end of the day, like most people, I'd just ask the Lord to take me tonight while I sleep, instead I wait until my feet hit the floor in the morning, when I'm grateful for another day, that way I'm more apt to praise Him than curse Him." followed of course by more laughter. He died peacefully in his sleep at 88. His ability to laugh through the darkest times is what I remember most, I hope to be just like that in 20 or so years. I wish laughter so long and loud that your belly cramps and tears roll down your cheeks my friends, it is the best medicine.

Gary

Texas_wedge

garym said:

Don't forget laughter...
A life long friend of my father when asked "How ya doing today Bill?" would always answer "Still sucking air!!" and then break out in a belly laugh so contagious you couldn't help but join in. His nick-name was Wild Bill and it suited him to a T. When he was in his early 80's I asked him how he stayed so "up" with all that ailed him, he said "That's easy, I save my prayers for the morning.". What do you mean I asked and he said "At my age if I prayed when I'm worn down at the end of the day, like most people, I'd just ask the Lord to take me tonight while I sleep, instead I wait until my feet hit the floor in the morning, when I'm grateful for another day, that way I'm more apt to praise Him than curse Him." followed of course by more laughter. He died peacefully in his sleep at 88. His ability to laugh through the darkest times is what I remember most, I hope to be just like that in 20 or so years. I wish laughter so long and loud that your belly cramps and tears roll down your cheeks my friends, it is the best medicine.

Gary

Staying positive
FLY (fox loves you) - this is the flying fox thread but it's not batty!

I've spent some time in the past few days on the Liver Cancer threads. The day before I got my rcc diagnosis we heard that a cousin of my Wife's, a lynchpin in their family, greatly loved and relied on as a wise and strong man by all, had narrowly survived a massive heart attack in London. Then, shortly before my op. (2 weeks ago) we learnt that he now has terminal liver cancer (probably of met. origin - he is a cancer survivor previously affected in other organs). He is a few years younger than my Wife (68 today) and myself and has the positive attitude exemplified here by foxhd, garym and others on 'our' threads. Last night he made a desperate flight back to London from the other side of the world to see the UKs liver cancer research supremo in Harley St. to appraise eligibility for clinical trials and a couple of drugs approved here but not yet available where he has been living. We're trying to leave no stone unturned and so I've been scanning the liver cancer threads.

Those threads illustrate dramatically the positive attitude that foxhd and garym are talking about. We are so 'lucky' to have kidney cancer - the outlook is so much bleaker with hcc and yet we see incredibly brave spirits there. They are very much the same people we are - these forums show a humanity that transcends gender, race, age and the other trivial parameters where we differ one from another - but the liver cancer sufferers have mostly been dealt a worse hand than we have.

For obvious reasons, I read a thread entitled "Treatment options for liver cancer" and I just sat in tears for quite a while (see, in particular the posting by biborges which contains a message of great value). Soon after that, a contributor to that thread (Shirley) who writes movingly about her Husband who has liver cancer, started another thread entitled "If you are new to cancer Don't Believe The Statistics". I commend her opening entry to all as a manifesto for all cancer sufferers. The theme is that the patient is NOT DYING OF CANCER BUT LIVING WITH CANCER but I won't attempt to match the eloquence and depth of feeling Shirley brings to it which is truly inspiring and heart-warming.