Just Get Me Through This! - Revised and Updated. Deborah A. Cohen

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СКАЧАТЬ High-fat diet. Again, fat consumption boosts estrogen, and the last thing you need after breast cancer is more estrogen. So, stick to a diet low in saturated fats (some monounsaturated fats are fine). You’ll also prevent obesity (see the discussion in Chapter 9, “Nutrition: Looking at Food in an Entirely Different Way”).

      9. Lack of exercise. You’ve been bombarded, ad nauseam, by information on the health benefits of exercise. So you don’t need me to tell you any more about how regular aerobic exercise strengthens the immune system to rid your body of bad cells before they turn cancerous (yes, everyone has bad cells; cancer just forms when your immune system can’t eliminate them from your body properly). But I will tell you that a review in the Journal of the NCI (1/21/98) evaluated a range of studies on the effects of exercise on breast cancer, and reaffirmed its risk-reducing effect in healthy women of all ages.

      10. Alcohol. There is a growing body of evidence linking alcohol intake to breast cancer, especially heavy use.

      Remember, You Are Not a “Cancer Patient.”

      “You are not a cancer patient. You are most likely a healthy person who has had some cancer that was removed and are now fine. Remember that. There is a difference.” These were the first words of the first oncologist I went to visit for an opinion. While I didn’t ultimately choose him for treatment, I found this extraordinarily helpful mental model to keep me positive and focused. According to him, “cancer patients” are those unfortunate people who must manage cancer until it ends their life at some point. With early-stage breast cancer, the theory is that most women are cured from surgery alone, and they will go on to have long, healthy lives. However, any and all the follow-up treatment recommended is purely “insurance”—or “adjuvant” treatment—so you will hopefully never have to become a “cancer patient.”

      You Haven’t Been Robbed of Your Youth. You’ve Been Granted Incremental Wisdom.

      If, like me, you are young—I was just 35 when diagnosed—one of the emotions you might experience in the initial days of coming to accept your new reality is a feeling that you’ve been robbed of your youth. Yes, rationally you understand all the doctors’ optimism about 90+ percent survival rates for early-stage diagnoses, and you fundamentally believe that you will grow old and live a full life. However, on an emotional level you can’t help but think that you have been robbed of your youth, your invincibility. Your body, which you have always taken for granted and considered immortal, has betrayed you. From now on, you must defer to it, honor it, even make promises and negotiate with it. Now you will always remember what it feels like to have had a brush with mortality. Whenever you are contemplating a major life event—your wedding, the birth of your child, watching your children grow up, etc.—never again will you be able to ignore that little voice in the very back of your mind whispering, “Will I be alive to experience it?”

      Instead of feeling shortchanged, robbed of your youth, consider that you’ve been granted a premature wisdom and perspective on life that many women twenty to thirty years your senior haven’t grasped yet. You will cherish and appreciate those special life events even more, and remember where they rank in your ever-competing life priorities. It’s a gift. Use it wisely. And don’t ever lose it.

      It’s a Very Tough Way to Find Out You Don’t Control the World.

      It’s your diagnosis alone, and try as you might, nobody else’s. As many times as you might say, “No, this isn’t happening to me,” it’s not going to walk away from you anytime soon. Just accept it. Then get going at gathering information and making decisions regarding your treatment plan. That, at least, is something you can control. No matter what your occupation, if you work, you get paid every day for making decisions. So, make decisions about your own life with consideration, courage, and conviction. At least you’ll feel like you’re back in charge.

      It’s Okay to Have an Occasional Panic Attack.

      By the end of the first month into this whole breast cancer ordeal, you will probably be so sick of people reminding you that “Your attitude is everything.... Stay positive and you’ll stay well.” How do they know?!?! Since when did they become experts, especially those people who panic when they break a fingernail? They don’t have a magic crystal ball. You feel like telling them to go jump in a lake and leave you to sulk or panic on occasion. That’s just fine; it’s perfectly okay. If you didn’t have occasional moments of panic about not reaching your next birthday, not being around to see your children off to college, not enjoying your retirement days, you wouldn’t be normal. You might even still be in the denial stage of coming to accept your condition.

      Acceptance: It’s Amazing How Your Mind Comes to Terms with Reality.

      You may experience a slow evolution to acceptance of whatever treatments are necessary to deal with your specific cancer by a unique process of bargaining with yourself. The good news is you always win, and you also come to accept issues when you are emotionally ready to handle them.

      I began with an attitude of, “Okay, I want to do surgery as fast as possible, but we caught it early so I won’t need anything else, except maybe a little radiation.” Then, following surgery, when my doctors started discussing adjuvant chemotherapy because of the size of my tumor and aggressiveness of the cell types, I conceded, “All right, just a little chemo, but nothing too toxic. Make sure I don’t lose my hair.” And finally, after several opinions from oncologists and the realization and acceptance that this is a serious disease that could kill me if I don’t treat it properly, my attitude became, “Who cares about my hair, I want my life! Bring in the big guns! Give me the most aggressive chemo you have . . . I’m tough, I can handle it. And by the way, what else do you have in your arsenal that I can do to make sure that this never, ever comes back ? ! ? !”

      A Whole New Meaning to One Day at a Time.

      If you’re reading this book, you are probably a planner, an organizer, just like me. You’ve often been advised not to worry about the future, just to take one day at a time as it comes. Guess what? It’s true. With cancer, that rush to get to tomorrow comes to a screeching halt. Sure you want to get all this surgery and treatment stuff over with and behind you because you might just not feel that great. But beyond that, just savoring today brings a whole new perspective to that old adage. Because you’ll never know what tomorrow will bring—either good or bad.

      SPREADING THE NEWS: EXPOSING YOURSELF TO THE WORLD

      Okay, so you’ve now broken the news to your cherished “inner circle” as part of the means to help you comprehend the magnitude of this news. So what’s next? How do you spread—or not spread, if that’s your choice—the news to a broader group of people. To whom do you turn first? Who needs to know directly from you? How do you control the message so the rumor mill doesn’t run rampant? Do you even care? How do you manage this entire process without feeling an incredible sense of exposure and vulnerability?

      Enlist Your Inner Circle . . . Assign Roles.

      In additional to enlisting your inner circle for emotional support (that goes without saying, it’s why you chose them), you also want to communicate with them about the very practical, logistical things you might need help with over the next few months. Based on how you think each person might be most helpful, you can assign roles to help you. Some might have the right temperament to accompany you to doctor appointments and consultations, helping to take notes, listening for you when you really aren’t hearing, and managing medical records to alleviate you of such administrative headaches. Others might contribute by helping with research and gathering information, which may simultaneously lower their anxiety levels, as they become more educated and informed. And others may be best suited to helping to manage your family and life chores, including babysitting, running errands, housekeeping, cooking, etc.

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