Positive Cancer

When Cancer hits one of the most important things you can do is deal with relationships in your life. I don’t mean go and find everyone you ever knew and make them your best friends or closest family member, I mean deal with the people that deal with you. Find the ones that care for you, and those that don’t can go to the wayside. I’ve said this in previous posts, but I have no time for people who don’t want to deal with my Cancer. I deal with my Cancer, my family deals with my Cancer, and my friends deal with my Cancer. It’s that simple, you’re in or your out. This post isn’t a rant on how friends can vanish when you’re sick though it nearly headed there, it’s about why talking to others will help you.

It’s not easy opening up to people, but by sharing emotions through words you can make yourself feel better, more in control, and more able to deal with adversity. It’s important to share emotions because it’s a doorway to your own feelings and can help you understand, and control them, rather than be overwhelmed by them. Also, by talking to others you can allay your own fears and relegate Cancer to the background by making yourself feel less alone, and more normal. Normal is great for someone in our situations, in fact it’s very Positive.

Talking to others will help you strengthen the bonds of family or friendship between you and by doing so will make you feel better about what will happen down the road. In my case I’m not concerned for my own life, but rather what those who are left behind will do with my absense. By talking to my family I feel better and more secure knowing that my kids will grow up provided for and loved. This in turn releases stress, makes me healthier, and gives me the all important Positive mind set. Strengthen the bonds, and that strength will in turn help you.

It’s very important for you to take time to talk to children, as it will in turn allow them to understand how to express themselves later in life, or during any difficult times that may arise. Children feel stress and sadness when someone they know has Cancer, so give them another weopon to deal with it, and do this by example. Talk to children, not necessarily about Cancer but instead about how to express themselves. This will make them feel better, and you will feel better also.

Talk to others to enjoy your life, talk to others to prolong your life, and talk to others just to hear your voice.

Positive Cancer is really just shorthand for positive thinking about Cancer, and really the idea is to force yourself to think about the things that are holding you back, and to deal with them positively. For instance, have you ever woken in the night, or in the morning and had that sick feeling, and I’m not talking nausea, I mean genuinely sick feeling, so bad you thought that this might be your last day? I have, and I suspect that you have also.

I tend to think that feeling is partially our bodies becoming overloaded from fighting the Cancer, and partially because we “stress” out in our sleep about the Cancer, that we’re not content with having it, and this “stress” takes a toll on us. While one should not be expected to just accept that they have Cancer, everyone must come to the conclusion that they have to deal with Cancer, that they have to fight Cancer, and that they are living with Cancer.

You need to realize that Cancer is not just an outside force changing you on a cellular level, its trying to change you on a personal level. While there’s only certain things you can do to deal with Cancer physically, there is quite a bit you can do to limit its effects on you mentally.

Cancer did not take away mental strength, you did. If you think that’s not true, then you’re arguing that Cancer took away your will and who you are. I don’t agree with that, simply because I think that Cancer gave me mental strength, much more than I could ever have had were I Cancer-free. Keep in mind if I had a choice, I would give up the mental strength in a heartbeat if I could not have Cancer, but we all know that’s not my choice.

Mental strength equals stress release that much I do know, and so you have to start by deciding to live with the Cancer, and still living within yourself. Give yourself a chance to show how strong you are, let go of your fears, and focus on how you are going to keep yourself from worrying about what is to come. Live in what will be, it’s a simple Mantra but very important for us. By us, of course, I mean those who are thinking positive about Cancer.

Positive thinking happens for most of us on a sub-conscious level, and most people never really have to go deeper than that sub-conscious level to keep their lives in order. Those of us who have Cancer and the ones that are directly affected by it such as our loved ones need to focus on staying positive. For those of us with Cancer positive thinking is not just a form of insulation from the problems of the world. It is a Mantra, it connects us to the way things were, and the way we wish things could be, and ultimately it changes what we have now to what we want. From time to time we need to focus our energy and think about what Positive Energy is, and how it affects our mental well-being. This is a simple exercise to do that.

Close your eyes, think of life without you in it, and allow yourself to wonder at what will be. Start with your spouse, your children, your immediate family, and then your friends, and then the day to day acquaintances, the people you run into at the store, the library, wherever. What do you see? Do you see them happy? Perhaps in the short run when you look at life moving on, you might imagine your family sad, crying, and mourning. A hundred different images for a hundred different people will pop into your head, but through it all you have to ask yourself: Is this what I want? I don’t mean ask, and move on, but take a minute, and really ask yourself what it is you’re seeing in the future, and if it makes you unhappy, how you can change it to what you want. This is a simple exercise but it will tell you a fair bit about what your fears really are, both for your life, and those you care about.

Once you know your fears, its time for you to do something about it. If you think that no one will remember you, ask your loved ones what they will remember most about you. If you’re estranged from family or friends try to talk to them and let your fears go. Start working on feeling better, removing hidden stress and becoming a more positive person. Whatever the problem, look for the solution and do not dwell within the problem. Stress is the problem, positive thinking is the solution. Cancer is the problem, living each day with joy is the solution.

In truth the exercise is actually designed to make you realize that you will miss life, not that others will miss you. While you think about other people, wonder for a moment what you will miss, what will change for you. I promise it will make you feel better connected to your feelings, and as such give you more purpose than you could have thought a simple exercise could do. If you lost the drive, the will to live life on your terms, then this will remind you all you have to lose, both for yourself and your family, and your friends. Sometimes it takes a jump start to force Positive Thinking. There is no greater shock than the one you got when you found out you had Cancer. Think about it.

People with Cancer try different herbal remedies, different chemotherapies, and different strategies to overcoming their health issues. Some people think that doctors are too willing to negate the effects of yet untested drugs, or herbal medicines, while others believe that alternative medicines are far more powerful than doctors admit. I think that sometimes when you talk to your doctor, you have to look for solutions to your problems that can be “outside” the box.

I have a strange example; it involves a pop drink, Coke in fact. When I was released from the hospital I started drinking Coca Cola regularly, at least one can a day, if not more, and it helped. The doctors all thought I was crazy, but the thinness of water caused me much discomfort in my throat and doctor made “pouch” and so Coca Cola and Gatorade were the only two liquids I could drink. Milk would also cause problems, and even other types of pop did not sit well with me. I assumed that the sugar was helping my energy level, and that the empty calories would help me gain weight. I still think I was right on both counts, but my doctors disagreed. They preferred that I drank the Gatorade but lay off the Coca Cola. I understood their point of view, but I could not give up the Coca Cola.

You might think I was addicted to the caffeine, and that’s not a bad assessment, but the truth is that I could hardly eat anything, so having the tasty Coca Cola comforted me mentally. It allowed me to feel normal when out with friends, I could at least drink slowly and enjoy it while others ate and it was something to look forward to when nighttime came and I could relax and watch TV. It was very important to my mental health, and I think it helped to keep my mind positive.

Fast forward two years, and I have put on 50 lbs, I’m healthy but for the life threatening Cancer and I no longer drink Coca Cola. What is interesting is that I came up with another theory as to how the Coca Cola was helping me; the acid from the Cola would replace the stomach acids I had lost due to gastrectomy, and thus helped me to break down the food I was eating, giving me better absorption of the nutrients. Now I’ve had doctors that have disagreed with this, ones that agree with this theory and even ones that say “I don’t know the answer to that.” Either way, I’m no longer drinking Coca Cola.

Thinking outside the box doesn’t mean that you always know why you are doing the things your doing, sometimes it’s just your body’s way of fighting, your mind’s way of fighting the Cancer that is trying to take away the norms of your life. I found my Coca Cola, stay positive, fight the Cancer, and look for yours.

(Always, always, always talk to your doctor. They are help personified.)