Cancer survivor Dr. Neil Fiore shares this advice when dealing with a cancer diagnosis:
How to face the fear of diagnosis and reduce the stresses of therapy:
- Remember that "Cancer" is not a diagnosis. Ask for the specific type and stage and the treatments that are possible.
- Remember that 90% of some types of cancer are curable or held in remission.
- Reduce stress hormones by Choosing as much as you can about your treatment, your doctors, the timing of surgery and chemotherapy.
Choice is separate from want to or have to and lets your brain know that it's okay to work with your medical treatment.
- Make yourself safe with you, regardless of what happens. Stress is a response to messages of danger that are shut off when you decide that you are not going to make yourself feel bad-that you are safe with YOU.
- See choice and remember the Serenity Prayer. Stop trying to control what you can't control and focus on what you can do Now. You will feel less helpless and frustrated and more effective by controlling what you can-your attitude and how you talk to yourself.
- Ask questions to let your doctors know that you want to be an active member of your healthcare team. This will relax them from trying to take full responsibility for your life and your treatment decisions.
- Call on family and friends to help you get answers and to help you when you are too overwhelmed to respond to your doctor's news.
- Learn what you can about your treatment but once you've decided on a treatment focus on the positive benefits, not the negative side-effects e.g., replace "toxic" chemotherapy that will cause your hair to fall out with "powerful medicine that will kill rapidly dividing cells;" cancer cells are the most rapidly dividing followed by hair cells; therefore, loss of hair is a sign that my powerful ally is working.
- What you tell yourself can lead to inner peace or stress.
- Make yourself safe with you regardless of what happens and you will shut off the stress hormones, increase the strength of your immune system, and possibly speed recovery from surgery and chemo.
Dr. Neil Fiore is a 30-year survivor of a "terminal" cancer diagnosis, a founding member of the National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship, the author of five books, a Vietnam vet, and a psychologist in private practice in Berkeley, CA.
He is an active skier and biker who completed a 100-mile Team In Training bike ride to raise money for Leukemia research.
About the book:
When Neil Fiore was 32 he was diagnosed with terminal cancer and given one year to live. He told himself he would not live that year in fear or being controlled by doctors.
He asked questions, read about his type of cancer and possible treatments, and fought to get the chemotherapy that saved his life. He volunteered for an experimental chemotherapy protocol that was the first to yield an 80-percent survival rate and led to the development of the chemo that cured the very advanced cancer of Lance Armstrong twenty years later.
Neil continued to work as a psychology intern while taking weekly injections and did not experience severe side-effects for the first few months possibly because he was able to lower his stress hormones by choosing and fighting to get on chemotherapy.
After 18 months of treatment he made the difficult decision to end chemotherapy, was asked to make a video for other cancer patients, spoke at Grand Rounds, and had his article, "Fighting Cancer-One Patient's Perspective," published in The New England Journal of Medicine.
In 1986 Dr Fiore became one of the founding members of The National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship.
He has survived metastasized cancer for over 30 years and is dedicated to encouraging other patients to be active and take charge of their treatment.
Coping with the Emotional Impact of Cancers offers hope and steps on how to deal with the stress and depression of cancer and its treatment, how to communicate with doctors and family. More important, Dr. Fiore, a psychologist, suggests ways to build emotional support systems with physicians, family and friends.
Note: this is not another book that promotes a "positive attitude" but sites the research that the expression of the so-called "negative emotions" of depression and anger actually enhances your immune system. And finally, he shows how playing an active role in your treatment can have an enormous impact on the course of recovery.
