Positive Cancer

When my GIST was first removed, I can remember the surgeon coming to my room and saying, “I’m not sure what the prognosis is, I need to get a test result on the areas we took out of you to see if the Cancer has spread.” A few days later he came back and with a smile he told me, “The areas around the tumor were fine, the cancer isn’t metastatic.” At the time I really did not understand what it meant, but I was still alive and therefore it was all good.

Last September, after having a CT scan, my Cancer doctor said to me, “I don’t have good news. Your Cancer has turned metastatic and spread.” I still didn’t really have a good idea what it meant until I asked the doctor if I could still have an alcoholic drink once in a while. She replied, “You can drink as much as you want, whenever you want.” It hit me then, and my wife who had started crying, that this was truly not good news.

I could have taken that moment to give in, to just bow to the depression, anxiety and stress. I never thought twice about doing that, even when the doctor basically told me that I should enjoy my last few days. If I go out, I told myself, I go out on my terms. Positive Cancer, thinking positive about Cancer works for me. I steeled my brain from any negative forces, and even that bad news did little to faze me. I was disconcerted for a few weeks, as were my family and friends, but little by little things became normal again, and here I am writing this post. I am on Gleevec for as long as it works, and I think little about where I’m going to end up. I’m happy where I am, here with family and friends.

Having Cancer and giving up is signing your own death certificate, so do everything in your power to live a normal life. Don’t give in; instead fight the negative urges with positive thoughts, exercises, or whatever makes you feel good. You did not choose to have Cancer, but it’s up to you how you live with it. My mind won’t allow me to give in to it, and I would not have it any other way. Don’t give up, it’s not an option for anyone with Cancer.

I have had more than a few people say that thinking positive is something that is not natural to humans, and in some ways they are correct. I believe that everyone’s nature is generally positive, but that like an athlete with natural ability, if we do not “work on” the positive thinking we will not realize our true potential.

Case in point, after finally having a week and a half away from colds and flues I awoke this morning with, you guessed it, another cold. This one seems to be harder on my throat, and harder on my energy level than most colds, but what is making me negative is not the cold, but how I came to get it.

I had friends over, as I do once in a while, and shared a bag of potato chips with them. Now you’re probably thinking that anyone with a compromised immune system should not be sharing chips with other people but I try to live a relatively normal life, and it helps me to fight through the days and maintain my positive outlook. One of my friends, well he had a cold, though he forgot to tell me this before he came over; I would think that I still would have had him over, so him forgetting to tell me is not the biggest deal, though something I have decided to look for in the future.

The night progressed, and things turned out fine, but then I get a call the next day. My friend had realized something, something important at that. He told me not to eat any of the chips out of the bag that we had shared the night before, and that he had “wiped his nose with his hands and then ate the chips.” I know what you’re thinking, and yes that is disgusting, and yes he is in his mid thirties and not a small child. So I hope you can see where my negative feelings are coming from.

So as I sit here with this cold, I have been thinking about that, about whether I should dwell on his “strange” mistake, or just not worry about it. I’ve decided not to worry about it, make it an exercise in Positive Cancer.

By focusing on the cold, and on feeling better both physically and mentally, my body feels better, and the cold seems less intense. I think I was holding back some of my body’s natural healing by focusing my attention on the negative, not on the Positive. Even I have to remind myself that everyday is good, regardless of circumstance. I can feel the mental strength as I think only about how to recover, and I know that this is the right course of action.

We all are responsible for our positive thinking, and unlike people who are not dealing with Cancer, or some other life-threatening disease, we need to always be as positive as possible. I do not want any portion of my thinking to take away from my life, now or in the future, or to hinder my body’s ability to heal itself. Find positive thoughts within yourself; don’t worry about what has happened, and just deal with it. I’ve invited my friend over for a game of cards tonight and I have every intention of giving him a hard time about this cold, but the words won’t be coming from my heart, they will tongue and cheek.

I have mentioned in previous posts that Cancer hits the wallet hard, and that I would post information that I had from my own experiences about how to save some money. One way to do that is to save on where you are staying.

In Canada, Weston Hotels partners with the Canadian Cancer Society and donates rooms for out-of-town people to use, free of any charge. That’s right, absolutely free, as long as you call the Canadian Cancer Society and tell them what your appointment is about, give them your information, your doctors information and they will begin the process. It’s best to give them a good amount of time so that they can get Weston Hotels the information of dates and times as soon as possible.

In addition to the Weston, several different Hotel chains offer a “hospital” discount, especially if they are located near a hospital. In my case during one of my visits to Calgary, I could not stay at the Weston Hotel as it was booked up completely, and so I called three different hotels in the vicinity of the hospital and all three gave me a discounted “hospital” rate which basically amounted to 15 percent off the normal rates.

When trying to deal with Cancer every person must do whatever is possible to reduce stress, and hopefully having a little more information of what is available out there will help to do exactly this. That’s Positive Cancer.

It’s hard enough having Cancer, but as anyone who has kids, and for those that don’t but are susceptible to colds, flues and infections knows it sucks getting a cold. I can tell you I never get crankier then when I get colds, and so that’s why I thought I would talk a little about walking on a treadmill.

I like to walk the treadmill, at first it was just for the sake of effort, and then as a way of recouping my cardio, and now as a precursor to any running I might do. I am completely for doing exercise, and the treadmill was a great help to stabilizing my weight loss and allowing me to fight colds and other infections.

At first thought it would seem that doing more exercise would hurt my ability to gain weight but walking the treadmill had a great side effect: hunger. Not my usual stunted hunger, but my muscles wanted nutrients hunger, and so I ate and ate and started gaining weight. The weight gain helped deal with colds but even more so the stamina I got made colds definitely, and I will say again, definitely seem less severe and I was better able to handle them.

Now consulting a doctor is a must before beginning any exercise, and what I have done may not be for you. With that in mind, walking gave me more energy, more ability to fight colds, made the colds seem less powerful, and even triggered endorphins which tend to fight “depression.” Sure the occasional cold, or flu knocks me out for a couple of weeks, but I can only imagine how much worse they would be or how much longer my recuperation would take if I did not keep to my walking routine. Walking treadmill took some time to build up, but now I can go for an hour, five days a week, and I couldn’t be happier with the results. If the doctor says yes, give it a try.

It’s funny, I never really thought about Cancer except as something that either really young kids got, or something that older people ended up with. Now I can’t stop thinking about how few resources there are for people in my age category, that being the mid thirties, and wanting to do something about it.

Positive Cancer is the start of my support for people of all ages, but I will post articles from time to time specifically aimed at people in my age category. Cancer ages you, it makes your body older and more fragile, but have you ever stopped to think how people look at you when you tell them you have Cancer. I’m 35 but I feel closer to 70 with the looks I receive, and not the pity looks but the genuine perplexed looks from people who are thinking “You should be older,” or “You should be younger.” Well perhaps that is true, but Cancer did not give me the choice.

Middle thirties with young kids and life threatening Cancer isn’t a tremendous demographic but it is an important one. We are the ones whose bodies can take the most punishment, and whose minds have developed will enough to shield ourselves from negative thoughts. It is not by chance that I survived my massive operations and subsequent infections, hospitalizations, and setbacks. My age helped as my body was at a point where it was strong from years of use, but not weakened from overuse.

I vividly recall that a few days after the surgery as I was lying in bed, I overheard a doctor who was doing rounds and talking to my nurse. He must have looked at my chart because he asked, “Hmm, what kind of complications are we having with him?” The nurse replied, “None yet,” to which the doctor said, “What, that doesn’t seem right.” He then came into my room, and took one look at me and turned to the nurse and said, “Oh he’s young; you should have told me that.”

So the very lottery I had won, the one that gave me Cancer at 31 also gave me the benefit of being able to best fight it. See, Positive Cancer, that’s what I’m talking about.

I hope that everyone who comes to this site understands that Cancer is just a word that describes many different things, many different negative things. Cancer means death, injury, change, anger, resentment and hopelessness. One by one Positive Cancer is going to take these subjects head on, and try to make light where there is darkness.

I’m a big fan of the simple Mantra, as many of my posts show, and here is another one for you to think about: Life with change is better than no life at all. It is simple but like so many basic things it is powerful, and it needs to be said and focused on. I want to live, I told myself this in no uncertain terms, and I am going to deal with whatever comes, no matter the change to my body, to my mind or to my spirit.

If you develop this “Mental toughness” you will find that the negative days, the days when things just don’t go well for you, will become easier to navigate through. You will have already steeled your mind to the fact that it doesn’t matter and that you will be moving on despite the Cancer. Cancer will change you, but you cannot let it take away your fundamental urge to live. When I went in for my emergency surgery the odds were not the best for me to survive, and when I awoke I can still remember looking at the doctor, Morphine coursing through my system, and saying “One more year with my son?” “One more,” he replied, and with that I promptly fell into a long sleep.

I did not care what Cancer had done to me, how it had changed my life, I cared that I was going to live, that I would see my son for at least one more year. That is the heart of positive thinking, and Positive Cancer. Remember the Mantra: Life with change is better than no life at all.

Sometimes when I write I tend to get a little dramatic and to shade everything with degrees of seriousness. When it comes to my Cancer and how my story unfolds, I think if anything I am the opposite and that I am writing it with less seriousness than the situation allowed. I wonder if everyone who has ever had a life threatening situation looks back the same way, with the numbness of time shadowing the pain slightly.

So the pain, as I mentioned in Part 1 of my story, turned out to be a gastrointestinal stromal tumor, or as it’s more commonly referred to, a GIST. This Gist had been inside me for over two years, and now was ready to rip through the lining of my stomach. I can remember waiting at the hospital emergency room for someone to come and get me, to help me understand why the pain was so intense. Forty minutes waiting is what I remember, but I was in a fevered state and so my sense of time and reality could have been askew, before I was admitted to emergency. The doctor put me on the examining table, and started asking me questions, ones I still don’t remember to this day.

I should take a moment hear to talk about my pain threshold. I am not one of those people who are “bragging” about how much pain he or she can take, however I am one of those people who in extreme situations tends to be able to continue to function despite pain. Give me a cold and I’m whinier than most, but give me kidneys stones and I still go to watch a movie while passing them. It’s not anything powerful; it is just the way I’m wired.

I go into this pain threshold only because it helps to show just how badly my stomach hurt. I can remember cutting off the doctor and saying, “Doc I understand pain, I don’t usually have a problem with pain but this is beyond normal. I need something for the pain.” Something in the way I talked to the doctor must have registered that I was in a serious situation because things started to happen faster. I was put on a morphine drip, and then there were a few more nurses helping out, and they got me as comfortable as possible, and finally I passed out. I awoke a few times with chills or sweating from heat waves, both very typical symptoms of fever, and once I can remember the doctor checking my “rear area” for blood, of which their was none.

The night turned into another day, and then the word came that I would be transferred to another hospital, one that had a CT scanner available. I think that the best way to describe how I got from one hospital to the other would be “teleportation” because I don’t remember anything along the way. At that hospital they did a CT scan for which I was barely awake, though I do remember having to wait on an uncomfortable stretcher for over 5 hrs. The scan showed a mass in my stomach, which then prompted a scope, for which I was mostly asleep which then showed that I had a GIST in my stomach.

I slept again and awoke in a third hospital, even more fevered and more morphine “high”, and I can remember certain things with great vividness while others are more elusive. I can remember the surgeon visiting me, and looking at me gravely and saying, “Normally for this kind of operation we would wait three days, but I’m not giving you three hours to live so where going to operate immediately.” Part 3 of my story will tell you how the operation went, but you can probably guess since I’m writing this post whether it was successful or not.

You know there are times when I write a post and I feel like being dark and depressing and maybe even just a touch negative. Yes even I get these feelings, and that’s why I think its time for some Cancer Levity.

The American Heritage Dictionary defines Levity as follows:

1. Lightness of manner or speech, especially when inappropriate;frivolity
2. Inconstancy; changeableness
3. The state or quality of being light, buoyancy.

It certainly sounds to me that Levity needs to be applied to our Cancer, that lightness of manner or speech, or changeableness will help us maintain our positive thinking. So allow me to tell you what makes me laugh, as it pertains to Cancer, and perhaps you will tell me what makes you laugh.

I remember when one my friends, yes the one who took time off work but never ended up coming to see me as it happened that there was a theatre near by the hospital that interested him more, finally called me after I had been home for some time. The first time he called my wife cut him off, telling him that I was not interested in talking to him, which was nice of her since I was sitting right beside her when he called and it felt good. When you first get over any major Cancer surgery you take good whenever you can get it. He finally got the courage to call again, and somehow we agreed to meet and he came to my house, and expressed such self-loathing about how he couldn’t believe what he had done, and how he wished that I would forgive him, and so on. I, being a positive person, did forgive him, and then explained to him just how bad my Cancer was. I told him, “They removed my stomach, my spleen, my pancreas, and now I have to do chemo for some time.” The look on his face was a strange mix of pity and shock and he quietly said, “What kind of a time line are you looking at?” I looked him in the eyes and replied, “two weeks at the most.” Well the shock on his face registered again, this time his eyes bulged out, tears started appearing and a stammer shook his voice when he said, “What?” I waited for a few moments, and it must have looked like I was gathering myself to talk about the bad news, and then replied, “Just kidding. I just wanted to see your reaction, and maybe get some revenge.” That’s exactly what I said, and after that I let things go and we’re still friends today. Like I said, you take the good when you can.

So you see Levity is all about what you feel, how to make yourself feel better, even if that Levity is coming at the cost of seeing one of your friends flinch in pain because they realized just how bad a friend they had been. I did it, and for a moment I felt like I had achieved a state of quality of being light, of buoyancy.

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.

Often times people, myself included, come up with excuses for why we do the things we do, or don’t do. Take for instance working out. We know we have Cancer, and we know that exercise generally helps with both the physical problems associated with Cancer, and the Mental, and yet we do not take the time to work out. This post is to help you overcome that, and get you into the gym.

I have to start by once again stressing that I am not a doctor, just a patient who has found his way with simple methods, and low cost means. Any exercise program should be run past your family physician, or your specific Cancer doctors, or anyone who is helping you with recovery and knows your condition better. With that in mind, one of the most devastating things about Cancer is that it hurts you not just physically, and not just mentally, but it really hits you fiscally.

Cancer is expensive to live with, and as such, many people use lack of funds as an excuse to continue to feel sorry for their condition, and in a way they accept that Cancer kills their previous lifestyle, or carefree attitude. While some sulking, self-reflection and depression are normal, one cannot live life being held back by our own inability to move forward. If you want something bad enough, you can make it happen, and that includes affording a gym membership to get you on the path to feeling healthy.

I have received help from several different sources but one of the best, and I mean best source is the YMCA. Let me clear up something, I do not work for the YMCA, they are not endorsing me, and I have no connection to them other than I am a member at one of their gyms. As someone who has gone to them with financial difficulties, I am in the position to tell you how they can help, and that’s what this website is all about.

YMCA will not turn you down, regardless of whether you can afford a membership or not, as long as you’re situation is legitimate. That means that if you can afford only a few dollars a month, their okay with that because they are a not-for-profit organization. I have gone to two different YMCA’s in two different cities, and both membership directors were unbelievably accommodating, and both were very sympathetic to my needs and neither had any problems with helping me get into the gym. Not only did they help me, they gave me a family membership to help my wife and kids get into the gym as well. You cannot ask for more than that.

Cancer is hard, but getting into the gym is easy, as long as you have the willpower. If your doctor thinks you can handle it, but your wallet disagrees, seek the nearest YMCA.