Managing stress is especially important for those with cancer
Stress for Success
November 13, 2012
It’s vitally important for those with serious illnesses to manage stress well because chronic stress causes body tissue to adapt to higher cortisol levels - a stress hormone - so it loses its effectiveness in regulating inflammation. Unceasing inflammation aids the development and progression of heart disease, diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, depression, and cancer.
Unless you’ve experienced a serious disease, like cancer, you can’t understand the stress of it. But here’s a small peek into the life of my Symphonic Chorale “palo-alto,” Mary Ann Elder. Her experience with cancer doesn’t speak for others with cancer. This is simply part of her story.
Mary Ann said, “I was exercising when the first symptoms occurred four years ago. Then there was the crisis of going to the ER in intractable pain, the tests and then the news.” With no warning signs, she was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive uterine cancer with a poor prognosis; it acts like ovarian but it’s not as treatable. Therapies routinely approved for ovarian are denied uterine cancer patients so she has also experienced the stress of fighting insurance denials.
Mary Ann was approved for SSDi very quickly after the first recurrence, which, she says, “was sobering since one criteria is having a terminal illness. I’m now in treatment for the second recurrence. Three of my online friends, diagnosed around the same time, have died in the last year.”
Mary Ann, a social worker, has practiced healthy lifestyle habits and sees herself as a strong person with a “can do” attitude. She proceeded to educate herself on her disease and its treatments.
“Early on I read O. Carl Simonton’s classic book, “Getting Well Again”. His premise is that stress contributes to illness and we need to change how we react to it to get and stay well. It helped me learn about the mind-body connection. I did his exercises, taking note of my stressors in the 18 months preceding diagnosis, analyzing my feelings and thoughts and discussing these with a counselor. I learned meditation and guided imagery techniques and used them faithfully. These helped me get through the initial treatment, which I weathered well.” She stayed active in hobbies and worked full time.
Mary Ann came to an early awareness: she didn’t want to own or be defined by cancer. She gave it a name and now refers to it as “Chester.” She chose to continue to live her life.
She talked about three stages of abuse victims’ recovery:
1. Victim;
2. Survivor;
3. Thriver;
It’s not good enough for Mary Ann to see herself as a cancer survivor, as cancer media promotes. She’s a thriver. When asked where she was now that she’s back into treatment, she said, “I guess I’m a victim again.” But these three stages create a road map for her: she may be a victim right now who needs to move into the next stage to “survive” additional treatment. Then she can move into the thriver stage again.
Knowing her, I have confidence she’ll do just that.
Jacquelyn Ferguson, M. S. is an international speaker and a Stress and Wellness Coach. Order her book, Let Your Body Win: Stress Management Plain & Simple, at http://www.letyourbodywin.com/bookstore.html. Email her to request she speak to your organization at jferg8@aol.com.
Situation management crucial to well-being
Stress for Success
November 20, 2012
Over the last decade, my husband and I have had three siblings and eight close friends battle cancer. Their grace through their experiences has always impressed me and given me hope that should I join their ranks some day, I, too, might handle it well.
One of the most graceful people I’ve ever known, dear friend Christy Speirn-Smith, has also gone through cancer and its treatment. She too handled it with great poise. She has strong feelings about what helped her get through it originally and what sustains her to this day. I thank her for sharing these ideas with us.
Christy said, “The number one most important lesson is to trust your intuition. No one else knows how you feel.”
She learned how important it is to heed her inner voice when she found a lump in her breast over six years ago and subsequently went to her doctor. She was told that there was no problem. Months later, her intuition insisted that something was wrong. So, she returned to her doctor. She was right. She had Stage 2 breast cancer and went through a lumpectomy followed by radiation and chemotherapy.
During the diagnosis and treatment phase she said she didn’t spend her energy worrying; she has never been a worrier. We discussed how much more difficult going through cancer and its treatment would be if you’re the type to worry or obsess over life’s stressors. Her lack of worrying almost certainly protected her physically because as I wrote last week, excessive stressful thinking dumps excessive cortisol into your body. This dumping of this stress hormone during chronic stress leaves body tissues adapting to higher cortisol levels and losing their effectiveness to regulate inflammation. Chronic inflammation aids the development and progression of heart disease, diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, depression, and cancer.
Christy went on to say, “You must also take control for how to move forward with your treatment.”
This alone lowers stress at least a little because you’re taking your anxious energy and focusing it where it can do some good. So she educated herself about her illness and treatment options and found medical professionals she trusted. “You must connect with your caregivers,” she adds.
With her cancer several years in her rearview mirror, she remains responsibly vigilant. She’s not paranoid but she doesn’t believe in denial. If there’s a sign that something might be wrong she faces it and deals with it. In fact, right now she’s in the middle of dealing with another lump she found in her breast. Preliminary exams suggest it is not cancer but she is going through with full testing to make sure.
Finally, she stresses the importance of taking very good care of herself. The aftermath of her treatment provides daily reminders of what she went through. She still experiences neuropathy and pain that’s treated with medications, which drain her. “I fight the fight every day,” she said referring to these after-effects. It’s good that she’s also assertive because it allows her to set limits that protect her interests and her energy.
Jacquelyn Ferguson, M. S. is an international speaker and a Stress and Wellness Coach. Order her book, Let Your Body Win: Stress Management Plain & Simple, at http://www.letyourbodywin.com/bookstore.html. Email her to request she speak to your organization at jferg8@aol.com.
