Sunday, July 22, 2012

History of this Blog

   It all began with my personal experience with cancer.  The next step was writing the book, Fear Not. Learning from your Cancer.  Then workshops on the book began and finally this blog with examples from the workshops.

   As I thought of the development of this blog I was reminded of the Nursery rhyme, "The House that Jack Built."

Here is a Cancer Survivor
Who needed something to revive her.

Here is the Book the survivor wrote
From many a jotting and many a note,
To help the cancer survivor
Who needed something to revive her.

Here are the Readers all tattered and torn,
Cancer survivors feeling forlorn.
Who read the book the survivor wrote
From many a jotting and many a note,
To help the cancer survivor
Who needed something to revive her.

Here are the Workshops, a special few
Who wanted to tell their story too.
From the readers all tattered and torn
Cancer survivors feeling forlorn,
Who read the book the survivor wrote
From many a jotting and many a note,
To help the cancer survivor
Who needed something to revive her.

Here is the Blog posted on line
With comments from their cancer and mine.
Growing out of the workshops, a special few
Who wanted to tell their story too,
From the readers all tattered and torn
Cancer survivors feeling forlorn,
Who read the book the survivor wrote
From many a jotting and many a note,
To help the cancer survivor
Who needed something to revive her.

Now its out in the Blogisphere
Attracting viewers, far and near.
Where will it go next? It's up to you
If you are a cancer survivor too.




















Saturday, July 21, 2012

Chapter 6 Gains or Losses?

   It is time now to pause and take stock, to consider where you have been and what you have learned.

   Though new and encouraging discoveries are being made constantly, cancer is still a frightening word to many, a forecast of a death sentence.

   It surprises some persons to hear that many more cancer survivors experience "gains" rather than "losses" through this period.  "I didn't realize there could be anything positive about it", one survivor said.

   Make a list in your journal: what have you lost with cancer and what have you gained?

   Most in my cancer classes agreed with Pat, a cancer survivor, who wrote: "When I think of what cancer took from me I come up with a very short list: 1. a non-essential body part and 2. a few rather tough weeks out of my life.  The things cancer gave me make a longer list---"

   Following are some quotes from cancer survivors on the positive side of cancer, the gains.  They seem to fall into four categories.

1. Awareness of your strength and resilience:
     "Cancer has empowered me to be myself."
     "I am dealing with a powerful illness that I have fought successfully once and can and will do it again and again if I need to."
     "I have inner strength.  It took a crises for me to realize it."
     "What doesn't kill us makes us stronger."

2. Deepened relationship with others:
     "I have learned how kind and thoughtful people are."
     "Cancer opened my heart to the beauty of others."
     "I learned the absolute joy of simply hugging people."
     "You realize you are not alone."

3.  A changed attitude, striving less to recover what you have been, more to discover what you might be.
     "I have rearranged my priorities."
     "I don't sweat the small stuff anymore."
     "I have changed my perspective."
     " I was always getting ready for rainy days and I was missing the  days    of  sunshine."
     "I try to be open to all possibilities."
     " No time to dwell on "Why Me?" Its time to say "What Now?"
     "Remembering misery I am living in gratitude."
     " As is sit and reflect on the past year it is not the pain, nausea or even the many needle sticks that I remember but the many wonderful people and blessings that have come into my life'
     " I've faced my mortality and learned to live life to the fullest."

4.  Appreciation of the gift of life itself.
     "Life is more precious."
     "I am more sensitive to the presence of God, not rules to be followed or spiritual tricks to perform, just companionship with God."
     "Sickness was a force that brought growth and seasoned understanding and led me to a new depth of happiness."
     "I believe in miracles."
     "I realize the value of my life and the importance of each day."

Life after a critical illness does not go back to where it was before.  As these survivors testify, the unwanted experience can make you richer and surer.

Chapter 6 Mystery

                    Pass the Chocolate--Pass the Tissues
                    Let's Talk about our Deeper Issues

   In reviewing the learnings we have received from cancer we cannot bypass what we have learned about death.  We agree that death is a certainty but until now most of us believed that it was something that happens to someone else--not us.  Facing our own mortality is an opportunity cancer gives us.  We are forced to face a greater pain than even our physical ailments.  We are forced to resolve for ourself the issues of life and death.

   We may discover with cancer that our faith which we thought until now was strong is indeed weak and our trust in God was shallow.  Cancer demands more of us than the mouthings of faith.  Cancer gives us the opportunity to learn how strong our faith really is.  We learn to let go of a faith that is effort and will on our part and turn to a faith that is surrender.  We learn to affirm the redemptive value of suffering, how being wounded brings about healing.

   Time and again with cancer we realize our loss of control.  All of us want to believe we are in charge, that by will and determination we will not only survive but conquer.  But in order to maintain control we must have answers and with cancer there are no answers.  Why Me?  What is Death?  Is life only random?  Does nothing explain the unexplainable? It is a great mystery.

   We affirm the ultimate, the highest we can know is that we do not know.  St Augustine said, "If you understand it, it isn't God" but we find serenity in asking and the questions deepen.

   With cancer we realize there is no time left for superficial spirituality.  There is no time for greed, avarice, selfishness, competitiveness or pride.  There is only time to see life as it really is--so precious--so lovely.  We learn that we are never more alive than when we are looking death in the face.

   Our focus for this study has been more about renewal than recovery.  We will never be well in the same sense again.  But we may be better.  As well as learning our methods of coping--as well as finding our emotional strengths we can learn about our spirituality.  There is no need to fear.

   Joan Chittister said, "All of life is meant to teach us something--to give us opportunities to be better, stronger.  Not miracles but strength and courage--insight and hope--vision and endurance.

            

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Chapter 6 Patterns

   In this chapter we will try to put the pieces together, to tie up loose ends and find some clarity.

   First, congratulations for undertaking this study, for having the courage to not only face your serious illness but to seek to learn from it.  And what have you learned about yourself so far?

   Begin by flipping back through your journal to see what patterns emerge.  Look for what works, images, or themes keep reoccurring.  Discovering patterns of behaviour crystallizes new learnings about yourself.  It helps clarify and reinforce new self-understandings.  Not all discoveries are pleasant but all are edifying. 

   Here are some questions to guide you:
  • Did any fears continue to resurface?  Ponder where these fears may have come from.  How did or do you deal with them?
  • Where did (or do) you feel most challenged in your experience with cancer?
  • Is there any unfinished business you need to attend to?
  • Look closely.  Is there some untapped potential in your life that cancer has revealed?
  • Overall do you see a pattern of optimism or pessimism?
  • What or who is your key influence during this period.  Where do you find strength and hope?
  • How are you dealing with the current changed circumstances in your life.  How are you adjusting to life with cancer?
   As you study your responses, self-knowledge may jump out at you immediately. For others it may be many months before a clear picture appears.. There IS a pattern which illustrates who you are now through this cancer challenge.

   Let this just be a beginning.  Hopefully you won't stop learning about yourself through every stage of your cancer.  Continue to work to expand, correct, and understand with new, more sensitive antennae for detecting experiences, past and present.  These dark nights are given us for a reason.  If not treated as growth they will destroy us.


Saturday, July 7, 2012

Chapter 5 Resilient Dignity

   How can you maintain dignity with cancer?

   As I was growing up, whenever I was facing a new or challenging situation, my Mother would say to me, "Remember who you are."  I was surprised in my cancer classes at how many mothers had said this same thing to my students: "Remember who you are."  This is good advice as we consider dignity and cancer.

   There are so many things that strip away our personhood with cancer--things we normally associate and identify with ourselves. Parts of our bodies, previously kept private, are openly exposed.  We are conveyed from one impersonal machine to another, sometimes without knowing why.  Our formally sharp mind becomes foggy and confused.  Our level of fatigue seems insurmountable.  We begin to feel like a "thing"--a specimen to be impersonally studied. We long to be acknowledged as a person.  It's time to "Remember who you are."

   Getting relief from your symptoms is a helpful step in restoring dignity but dignity is more.  It includes maintaining a sense of meaning and purpose and a sense of who you are as an individual.

   The type of treatment we receive can have a dramatic impact on our sense of dignity.  No matter what our level of dependency or need, we have a right to be treated with dignity.  Yet the truth is we can't affect how other people treat us.  No one can give us dignity.  It is a product of self-respect, acceptance and self-honoring.

   Questions arise:  AM I still ME? Can I maintain or find the essence of who I once was, in spite of this cancer?

   It is a good time to look back at the tree of ourselves that we created in Chapter 1.  Study your life history.  Pay special attention to the branches containing the fruits of good things you have already accomplished or the good that you have done or has been done through you.  Accomplishments heighten your sense of dignity and self-respect.  Think about what you are most proud of.  In spite of illness the essential component that defines you is still there.  To repeat: Dignity begins with our own self-respect, acceptance and self honoring.  Remember  who you are.

   Have you known a person who maintained a sense of dignity during a cancer ordeal?  In your journal name that person and reflect on his/her characteristics.

  

  

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Chapter 5 Humor

   Cancer is a serious subject but we don't have to be so serious about it.

   At first there is nothing humorous about cancer.  You have worked through your feelings resulting from receiving your diagnosis.  You have learned to live with cancer and identified your way of accepting it. (Chapter 3) Treatment is hard.  You have examined your degrees of patience, endurance and courage (Chapter 4).  You have dealt with some hard, stressful emotions.  Now let humor lighten your stress.

   Did you know you can Google "Cancer Jokes"?  There are hundreds of jokes there, something for everyone's sense of humor.  Maybe you enjoy physical jokes, like slipping on a banana peel or, verbal jokes where the use of a wrong word creates the humor.  Cancer jokes contain a lot of Death Jokes but for those of us looking death in the face, these can be strangely comforting.  They help us think about death without feeling threatened by it.  My favorite are "Real Doctor's Notes".  It makes me giggle to imagine a doctor on a hurried visit to your bedside, scribbling notes such as:
  • "--on the second day the knee was better and then on the third day it disappeared"                              or
  • "Discharge status: alive but without my permission"      or
  • "Patient has 2 teenage children but no other abnormalities"   or
  • "Patient has been depressed ever since she began seeing me in l993"
   Find your favorite joke and share it here.

   There are persons who seem to be able to find something humorous in any situation.  Shelva, a student in one of my classes, was such a person.  She took the uncomfortable symptoms accompanying cancer and viewed them humorously.  When her operation for brain cancer left a large, zigzagged scar on the top of her bald head she told everyone it was a tattoo.  She said it was a letter"S" and stood for her name.

   The good news is you can develop you own sense of cancer humor.  My classes enjoyed creating cartoons.  There are some basic set captions used in many cartoons.  We used these basic captions and applied them to cancer situations.  Try it for yourself.  Here are some of the answers we came up with.  In capitol letters are the basic captions we used.  In italics are some of the answers we created.

ARE YOU SURE WE ARE ON THE RIGHT ROAD?  (a cancer patient in a hospital corridor begin wheeled to a maternity ward)

YOU WILL NEVER GUESS WHAT I DID TODAY. (an elderly cancer patient in a long, flowing blond wig)

WHAT HAVE I DONE NOW?  (nurse putting IV in the wrong place)

I DON'T KNOW.  I JUST FEEL LUCKY TODAY. (cancer patient being taken first in a doctor's crowded waiting room.)

   Laughter might not literally cure us but humor helps us focus on something besides our pain and promotes a lighter attitude in a heavy situation.