Cancer survivors especially learn to appreciate each day as it comes and the simple pleasures that accompany it. If you have had cancer, you may be a person who takes one day at a time. You may be worried about your future or may not want to dwell on it. This concept of concentrating fully on the here and now is powerful and can be rewarding. It is not the ideal perspective, however, when it comes to physical healing. To optimally recover from cancer treatment, one needs to make some plans-to have goals. Although time itself is a great healer, it is not as good as having a plan that you implement.
The concept of "mindfulness," or living in the moment, is not incompatible with thinking about the future, though. If you really want to live for today, then keep your focus in the present tense most of the time. Pause to look into the future only long enough to set some realistic goals that will help you to physically heal. Many people are more comfortable with the thought that many days, months, and years stretch out before them. Often people feel better when they have a sense of their destiny and a feeling of control over it. Cancer may have robbed you of the sense of future that you had before your diagnosis, but you certainly have a future, and setting goals can help with healing now and in the days to come.
Every cancer diagnosis is the beginning of a personal and a family crisis. My crisis began October 2, 2003-not even forty-eight hours into Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Actually, the story began a couple of years earlier, when I was nursing my youngest daughter. At that time I felt a thickness in my left breast and was mildly concerned. I had no family history of cancer, and at 36 I was too young to have a baseline mammogram on file (most women begin getting surveillance mammograms when they turn 40). Even though I knew the odds were exceedingly unlikely that I had cancer, I decided to get it checked out. I went to the doctor and had both a mammogram and an ultrasound, which the radiologist interpreted as normal. I couldn't shake the feeling that something wasn't right, so I went for a second opinion and had the ultrasound repeated and the mammogram read by another doctor. Again, the doctor interpreted the tests as normal. Two years later when I went back again for another check in the same spot, the cancer was obvious. I was 38 years old with no family history of any type of cancer. I didn't have any of the usual risk factors, but it didn't matter. I had the disease.
The word crisis, according to the Cambridge Advanced Learners Dictionary, is "a situation that has reached an extremely difficult or dangerous point; a time of great disagreement, uncertainty or suffering." Practically everyone who has been the recipient of a cancer diagnosis can remember the shell-shocked feeling that accompanies the news. The fog of war is a well-known phenomenon; there is also the fog of cancer when you are trying to understand what is happening, why it is happening, and what to do about it. In the beginning, for many people, the words I have cancer play over and over in their minds-three terrifying words. As time goes on, though, the crisis dissipates. You may have lingering feelings associated with your initial reaction, but chances are that if you are reading this article, you are thinking about your future. People who are ready to accept the next stage in this journey might have an easier time healing than people who are still in crisis mode.
One cancer survivor described the healing process as "mope, cope, and hope." Even if you are still in the crisis or "mope" stage, you will benefit from focusing on physically healing. You have been through a lot, and emotional healing commonly lags behind physical healing. Besides, concentrating on recovery is likely to give you an emotional boost. So, please keep reading. Just by reading this article, you are doing something positive to help yourself. Regardless of how you feel today, you are not operating in the same manner as immediately after your initial diagnosis. Of course, some remnants of the crisis will last for a long time, perhaps forever; but in order to heal, you need to focus your energy and thoughts on how you can best recover.
Almost everyone who is ill and on the road to recovery will have setbacks- minor bumps in the road, such as an elevation in pain when one increases physical activity, or a more serious problem such as a recurrence of cancer. When you are intent on healing and determined to put the cancer experience behind you, you may be devastated when a setback occurs. Yet, reverses are part of the recovery process. It is the rare and incredibly lucky individual whose healing progresses perfectly. What I have found helps to alleviate some of my patients' concerns is educating them about how normal it is to have setbacks and how setbacks are usually overcome with further medical intervention. Although I believe that setting some goals will help you in your healing process, I certainly wouldn't say to anyone, "If you set goals, you can accomplish anything you want and you won't have to deal with future health problems." That is not true.
Everyone, including people who have never had cancer, will have to face future health dilemmas. Those of us recovering from cancer will likely experience some minor and perhaps major setbacks. Understand this: setbacks are normal, they are not your fault, and they are usually treatable. When you experience a setback, revisit your goals once you have talked to your doctor and figured out a treatment plan to help with whatever is going on. You may need to revise your goals or come up with new goals. In the rehabilitation setting, we do this all the time with patients. Rehabilitation professionals anticipate setbacks and document in patients' charts why a particular goal wasn't met and how they plan to address the situation. We know that the road to recovery is fraught with obstacles that can cause frustrating delays. Yet we are also aware that setbacks are a normal part of healing and do not mean that a person won't recover.
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