When did you or a loved one recover from an event? Knee surgery, accident, heart attack, hospitalizations, maybe even a kidney transplant! All sorts of ways this rascal of a body keeps us on our toes. Every single issue you have had required recovery time, perhaps rehab, maybe even in-home nursing, certainly rest and nutrition to heal.
When a diagnosis of cancer is made, however, we may have a tendency to think like chicken little. It is intimidating. However, so many improvements are rapidly developing to change the trajectory of cancer treatments to help us be survivors. Perhaps we should take a breath and see this diagnosis differently, not to make light of it, but to add light to life with it. Why allow cancer to hold more power over you than we give to other insults in our long lives? It is not your identity. I suggest we change the narrative in our hearts and be determined to overcome.
It’s a simple switch. Resolve that recovery is possible and then seek out the process. Do not let cancer define you. Didn’t you go to PT after a joint surgery- fully expecting to ultimately heal? Didn’t you nurture yourself after a hospitalization? Haven’t you managed to deal with side effects of medications to enhance your well being? Why not put cancer into this category…. “I can recover this event. I can be strong and healthy. I will work toward my own power, have no fear and not be a victim.”
As we age and 1-2 of every 3 of us is faced with this once terrifying disease, let’s take a different approach and believe. Let’s diminish the impact on our thoughts and have expectations of a healing journey. Why let cancer have the power when we know from our very own experiences that we have strength to manage, recover and come out of the battle with success?
After all, you are the one who heals- not someone or something else for you. This week we can look for a real example of research using our own defense system. TILs (immune cells part of our own body taken right out of the tumor) can be multiplied in the lab, re-injected and shrink tumors previously thought terminal . (Gastric cancer research at NIH). These clever bodies of ours have most of the answers and as we unlock them, let’s have some pride in how truly amazing they are. Well, it is Passover and the Easter season. What better time to have faith?