[Ailist] How to Stay Positive With Cancer

[Brian Guest]

There are already several very worthy themes in this thread, but if I may just add some thoughts.
 
In facing surgery for cancer five years ago at age 47, I found gratitude and some strength in knowing that I was going to a world class hospital to be operated on by a highly skilled surgeon. I reflected several times that I was not an 18 year old about to step onto a Normandy beach on June 6th 1945. My generation had been fortunate to come afterwards.
We were already "old". The film "Saving Private Ryan" showed me, I believed credibly, what receiving medical attention in hell was like. 
 
The surgery was in Brazil and I also knew the reality of many for whom obtaining good health care in an hour of need could be such a challenge and sometimes such a heartbreak. I joked with my wife that I was going to a holiday camp. The comparisons were real for me and they helped.
 
My final thoughts before losing consciousness in the operating theatre were a "letting go".
Mentally I surrendered the part of me that needed extracting. I "released it" and "let the surgeon have it". The surgeon made comments to my wife afterwards about how the surgery went that I would like to think confirmed that my thoughts had been of use.

Indeed, illness can be a way of learning to "let go" in not just this physical sense. I am one of the believers that attachments can cause cancer and other ailments. One could argue that sometimes an illness is about not accepting reality in some way and if we are lucky it can help us see and joyously accept reality again. 
 
Brian Guest

--- On Wed, 11/12/08, Olen Jones <ojones at nationalcore.org> wrote:

From: Olen Jones <ojones at nationalcore.org>
Subject: [Ailist] RE: How to Stay Positive With Cancer
To: ailist at lists.business.utah.edu
Date: Wednesday, November 12, 2008, 11:33 PM

Olen Jones, Community Relations
National Community Renaissance 
National CORE
9065 Haven Avenue, Suite 100
Rancho Cucamonga, CA 91730 
(909) 483-2444 Ext. 122
(909) 483-2448 Fax
ojones at nationalcore.org 


Like several of the responses to this question, one idea that helped me
through treatment and recovery was what I had gained as a result of the
loss of my health.  Like others, discovering the love and support of
friends and family, the rich conversations I was able to have with my
wife and children, the experiences I was able to share with family and
friends through treatment, the relationships with the medical
professionals, the impact I could have on the medical professionals by
choosing to approach my disease as a living person rather than a dying
person, the story I now have to share with others experiencing similar
struggles, were so much greater than the disease. 

I really feel like I gained so much more than I lost.
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