I've not felt very well over the past three days and when my body feels miserable, my mind and my spirit begin to falter. I think the worst thoughts, dredge up the worst of my fears, and my self-esteem goes straight out the window. But today, so far, I am feeling a lot better and my attitude has improved. I am sweeping the negativity back under the rug where it belongs (so I can stomp on it) and starting to feel positive again. One of my techniques I use to help get myself back on the Positive Attitude Train is I think a lot about statistics and how determined I am to beat the odds. The more I think about that, the more empowered I feel. The more empowered I feel, the more positive my thoughts become. Etc. You get the idea.
So combine all that with reading the Phantom Michael's recent comment in response to my comment in response to his comment (who are you, Michael? Where did you come from? How did you find me? Why are you so kind and understanding and intellectually challenging for my benefit? That's why I call you Phantom Michael!), I found this article he recommended intriguing to say the least. Here's the intro to the article:
Born in 1941, Stephen Jay Gould was a geologist, zoologist, paleontologist and evolutionary biologist at Harvard. He was also one of the most noted, prolific and best-selling scientific writers of our day. He was diagnosed in 1982 with abdominal mesothelioma, a rare and very deadly form of cancer associated with exposure to asbestos. This is his story. It was first published in Discover magazine in June 1985 and was reprinted here at Phoenix5 with his kind permission. He beat the cancer for 20 years, finally passing on May 20, 2002, giving all of us a valuable lesson in beating the odds.(Click that link above to read the full article.)
Granted, I'm an intelligent person and I typically enjoy things that stimmulate said intelligence. But the way this article was so schollarly written made my chemo-brain do summersaults until it finally collapsed from exhaustion. So I suggest that you do read that article but skim the paragraphs to get his message from each one of them. I mean it. Don't just assume that all he's talking about is statistics and his own personal situation. Oh no. He speaks to all of us, cancer survivors especially, and he helps give me more hope in my ability to beat the odds. A particular paragraph really stood out for me:
If a little learning could ever be a dangerous thing, I had encountered a classic example. Attitude clearly matters in fighting cancer. We don't know why (from my old-style materialistic perspective, I suspect that mental states feed back upon the immune system). But match people with the same cancer for age, class, health, socioeconomic status, and, in general, those with positive attitudes, with a strong will and purpose for living, with commitment to struggle, with an active response to aiding their own treatment and not just a passive acceptance of anything doctors say, tend to live longer. A few months later I asked Sir Peter Medawar, my personal scientific guru and a Nobelist in immunology, what the best prescription for success against cancer might be. "A sanguine personality," he replied. Fortunately (since one can't reconstruct oneself at short notice and for a definite purpose), I am, if anything, even-tempered and confident in just this manner.And that's what it's all about. Positive attitude. If I were to look into studies and statistics at all, I would seek out those on how attitude affects serious illnesses. I wonder if anyone has done actual studies on such a concept? I've got a couple cancer books that vaguely mention such studies but they don't really give information as to who did it, where or when it was done. I'll search a little bit on the internet now and maybe you will too. If you find anything, please pass it on to me!
And don't forget...I'm still taking suggestions on other cancers for us to become AWARE of during this pink month of pathetic pinkness! So far I only have two suggestions and it's a long month, ya'll - though, I'll probably take the last week of October off since that's when my Big Nasty is to take place. I need some more ideas! Bring it!
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1 comments:
Phantom Michael ? Hmm, I guess, I have to get one of those masks now like the dude in the opera....
Regarding your remark "I wonder if anyone has done actual studies on such a concept?", the answer is yes, there have been studies on attitude and cancer survival, but these studies have not been entirely conclusive, that is to say some have found that a good attitude is beneficial while others have not. Most of this ambiguity probably comes from the difficulty of defining "a good attitude". If you want to study whether smoking causes lung cancer, well that is pretty straightforward, you divide people into those that do and those that don't and look at their respective lung cancer rates. A good attitude, well, that is a much more elusive thing to nail down. How do you measure it ? Do only people count as "good attituders" who have it every day at all times, what about 6 days out of the week and so on. Besides such studies rely on extremely stressed people to provide an objective self-assessment, which may or may not be accurate. You get the point. Personally I think a positive attitude is beneficial - at the very least it makes it easier to deal with the battles you need to fight to win the war. M.
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