I/1. The Problem
Problems are solved by fighters.
Cancer may kill you, or just temporarily scare you. Either way, your time remaining is a fresh gift that only you can open and see in the bright light of your fighting spirit. The amount of time is less valuable than its intense new quality.
––John Roberts
The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution.
––Bertrand Russell
Hearing that cancer has reached an advanced stage obviously is a shock. You no longer can deny the existence of the disease, as so often happens after the initial diagnosis. Gradually, though, your expectations will shift. You may find yourself becoming more cautious about your prognosis. Rather than believing the disease will not affect your life span, you may begin to see the future as finite because of your cancer.
Most people who face cancer learn that the battle is as much a mental one as a physical one. For many, greater knowledge about their disease, treatment choices, and prognosis can boost their capacities to handle any setbacks. Those who seem to cope best are the best informed, and recent studies suggest a link between improved survival and effective coping skills.
––Harmon J. Eyre, M.D. et al., Informed Decisions, 2nd Ed., 2002
Since medical advances can often forestall the end of life, death has become “medicalized.” No longer seen clearly as a natural and profound personal and spiritual event basic to the human condition, death is often regarded by clinicians, patients, and families as a failure of medical science. This can create or heighten a sense of guilt about the failure to prevent dying. Both the general public and clinicians are complicit in denying death, treating dying persons as patients and death as an enemy to be battled furiously in hospitals rather than as an inevitable outcome to be experienced as a part of life at home.
––Lawrence M. Tierney, Stephen J. McPhee & Maxine A. Papadakis,
2006 Current Medical Diagnosis & Treatment, 45th Ed., 2006
The majority of cancer survivors will die of something else, some with cancer present and some without. Others may experience a fatal recurrence much later. So, that leaves only a minority of people who get cancer and will die of it soon. Every year the statistics improve as science is making great progress in finding new treatments and cures. Cancer is dangerous, but not nearly as much as people think. Even with a serious diagnosis, optimism is justified in a disease that often defies forecasting.
Since more people will survive cancer than die of it, the biggest problem for most patients is to do everything you can to fight your way into the survivor group and lengthen your life. For a long time, you may not know which you are. So, as you fight, and maximize the value of unknown time remaining, you have to find the strength, motivation, and means to sustain the best parts of your old life and thrill to new ones, more than you ever have before. The problem with cancer is that it is bound to be a lot of lengthy trauma and travail, so you have to find a way to enjoy your pleasures, the challenge, the new world, and the good people you know and will meet, just as you have all your life.
The old world of cancer was mostly fatal. There are many kinds of cancer: there are over 100 different forms, but more than 80% of patients have one of just 14 kinds. Each one is different at the cellular level and the way it grows, spreads, or is cured. For a long time, there was no cure because medical science did not know how to stop the genesis of cancer cells and their multiplication and destruction of organs. Over a long period of time, the parent, mutant cancer cells were able to survive and grow without being eliminated by the normal immune system, treatment, or other protections.
The new world of cancer is full of hope and success. Science has crossed into new territory of microbiology and genetics. Many believe that the time is in sight when most cancers can be stopped or cured. Even those who are diagnosed with dangerous cancer are likely to live long enough to see new extensions of life or complete cures. That is another reason why it is so important to fight and remain optimistic despite whatever bad news may strike. Cancer is in a race against science; and, it is also in a fight to the death against the knowledge, strength, and will of the human spirit.
