SubscribeChecking Twitter the other morning, I found this message from @joezybolsiano:
Now I love Twitter, but there are some questions I can’t answer in 140 characters. This is one of them. I thought it was a good question to make a blog post, though, because for all my Bah! attitude I din’t have an immediate answer, and I was a little bit surprised that I didn’t.
So, this has been on my back brain for a few days. I’ve waited for an answer to formulate, but the best I have are a series of thoughts, some of which support each other, some of which contradict.
So here, my dear bloggy friends, are Bah! to cancer’s musings on whether surviving cancer is a question of attitude. Make sense of them if you can, and please add to them in the comments section.
1. I have met, and read about, many patients who have survived cancer for decades after being told it will kill them within weeks. They seem to achieve this by saying a Bah! from the heart of their being, and following that up with as many health-giving, life-supporting things as they can find and make sense to them.
2. I have also heard about people who die on the very day that their oncologist predicts. So if they have heard “3 months to live”, that’s exactly what they do – take 3 months, then die.
3. Doctors and oncologists are not always correct.
4. There’s a great deal we don’t yet know about cancer.
5. There’s a great deal we don’t yet know about the mind and how it works.
6. People with a positive approach to their own health check their bits regularly, notice unusual symptoms, and seek medical help early.
7. People with a positive attitude to diagnosis ask a lot of questions and make a decision to survive.
8. People with a positive approach to treatment for cancer attend all of their appointments, take all of their tablets, and go for all of their check ups.
9. Henry Ford said, “Whether you think you can, or whether you think you can’t, you are right.”
10. Cancer treatment can be brutal and frightening and maintaining a positive attitude is not as easy as skipping around saying “Hello trees, hello sky.” Not that skipping is easy when you’re being treated.
11. People with a positive attitude to survival maintain their relationships with their friends, their social lives, their family traditions. These in turn help them to feel that life is worth surviving for.
12. I do not believe that anyone has ever died of a cancer because they haven’t tried/fought/thought well enough.
In short, yes and no.
Yes: Attitude breeds behaviour and behaviour breeds outcomes…..
But some cancers are too advanced, too terrible, have already taken too much from the body, for all the attitude in the world to make a difference.
In which case their are still choices about attitude: choices about a death gracefully accepted, a peaceful and intelligent departure, that I hope, if it ever came to it, I would manage to make.
What do you think?
I think a postive attitude is paramount when dealing with a cancer diagnosis. As you so rightly point out, it isn’t an easy path and is most definitely not all sweetness and light, there are good days and bad days but if the majority are positive then that can only be a good thing.
Cognitive Behaviour Therapy is used to treat folk who have chronic illnesses to help them cope so I think we can see that even the medics see the value of a positive mental attitude and how visualisation and meditation can complement traditional medical treatment.
Being positive also is a great help to those around you who I feel, sometimes, have an equally bad or even worse time of it as they feel helpless but positivity breeds positivity and a smile makes you feel so much better than a frown.
As I’ve said above, lest this all seems a bit facetious, I know from personal experience that this is not easy, neither is it ignorance of the seriousness of the situation. None of us know how we would react until we are given that diagnosis and sometimes you can really surprise yourself with your ability to cope and draw on previously untapped resources. Having cancer does not take away your choices.
I think you’ve mentioned some good points and as you roll it around on the back burner a bit longer you’ll probably come up with even more.
Hi Stephanie, what a thoughtful post and really good points you made. I agree that attitude can make a difference, but does not necessarily lead to survival, nor does lack of physical recovery mean someone has not ‘tried hard enough’. I think a positive attitude can help but only when it comes from deep inside, and when people are told ‘you must be positive’ but they don’t really feel that way it can be counter-productive, leading to secrecy and denial. There are also medical situations which make it very hard to have that positive attitude (like my mother’s secondary brain tumours which affected her personality) and so it’s important not to make someone feel they have failed if they can’t muster up a great attitude.
Interestingly, I recently attended a conference where there was a presentation on the healing journey programme http://www.healingjourney.org.uk which has been used in Canada for over 25 years. They have gathered evidence that going through the programme does increase survival, but rather than being about positive thinking it is more to do with being prepared to do the inner work, looking at our own attitudes and beliefs and working through those. I’ll be looking more into the programme and the supporting book over the summer and reporting back on my blog about what I find.
Anne Orchard
Author ‘Their Cancer – Your Journey’