You have cancer.
In 2001, I became one of millions of people worldwide to hear these shocking words. I was living a full and busy life with my husband and 3 young kids but, with that one sentence, I suddenly entered the sorority that no woman wants to join. After my 6-month treatment of surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy, I moved on.
But the cancer did not, and seven years later I needed therapy for a recurrence of the cancer in my bones. The original diagnosis was shocking, but learning that my disease had spread to another part of my body was more jarring still.
My discovery that the disease was metastatic shook me in a way that the original diagnosis did not. I was successfully treated once again, but this time I made it a priority to learn what I could do to help myself. I asked my kind oncologist to offer some guidance and received the response that most of us get when such questions are posed …
Go back to your life as normal, try to keep your stress level down, and I’ll see you in six months for your scan.
Although I was extremely grateful for the great care he had provided, his words left me feeling disempowered to do anything to take back some measure of control over my life and destiny.
Surely, in addition to affecting my overall well-being, the food I was eating, my stress level, my physical activity, and my exposure to toxic chemicals must at least have some impact on my survival. I knew there was a wealth of medical advice available to cardiac patients about improving heart health and couldn’t help but wonder if similar counsel existed for those afflicted with cancer.
Our medical system uses rigorously tested therapies to treat cancer. However, resources and information to lower the risk of cancer or cancer recurrence are scattered and inconsistent. Cancer survivors often seek out advice from trusted friends or online sources. But scientific, evidence-based recommendations can be difficult to tell apart from gimmicks.
Still, the question loomed:
What should I do?
How could I, as a patient, reduce my odds of recurrence and take a positive role in my own healing?
As I asked around, a friend recommended that I read the book Anticancer: A New Way of Life by Dr. David Servan-Schreiber. The author was a physician and neuroscientist who had himself been diagnosed with cancer 15 years earlier. After his diagnosis, Dr. Servan-Schreiber asked his doctors similar questions about ways to be proactive in improving his health and odds of survival.
Like me, Dr. Servan-Schreiber received no answers. So he set about researching the role of lifestyle in the development of cancer and discovered that at least 40 percent of cancers – and, by some estimates, much more – are in fact attributable to lifestyle habits. Dr. Servan-Schreiber’s book is the compilation of his extensive research about the relationship between lifestyle and cancer.
I was profoundly affected by Anticancer.
After reading Dr. Servan-Schreiber’s book, I no longer thought of myself as being in a “battle” against cancer. After all, what am I fighting against — myself? It is my oncologist’s job to wage war on my disease, with every reasonable weapon at his disposal. But for me, the task is different.
I became inspired to think of survivorship and risk reduction as an invitation to manage my internal “terrain,” much as you would manage a garden. I could pull the weeds of a bad diet and inactivity. I could decrease the pest infestation by lowering overall inflammation and enhancing my immune system — growing, in other words, my body’s ability to fight disease and maximizing my own potential to make a difference in the outcome.
At last, I had found ways I could direct my efforts that were evidence-based and scientifically validated. As I made changes recommended in the book, I began feeling better both physically and psychologically.
These changes were – and continue to be – surprisingly easy to make. It has been an ongoing learning and adjustment process, but I now read labels – on food packaging and on personal and home care products – to know what I am eating, drinking and using on my body and in my home. I eat organic as much as possible, and mostly whole unpackaged foods. I exercise more and make an effort to work some movement into everyday life. And I try to take calm moments during the day just to breathe, look around, and feel gratitude for my many blessings. It all makes a big difference in my energy, state of mind, and sense of control.
Having experienced the benefits of lifestyle change as well as an understanding about the difference these changes can make in the prevention of cancer and in survival after diagnosis, I wanted to share this critical information with others. I spent a year working with medical experts at our local cancer center to create an online course guided by the principles detailed in Anticancer.
I designed and launched the Anticancer Lifestyle Program (ACLP), born of that effort, which is a self-paced online lifestyle transformation course. Our goal was to create an engaging program that would provide the tools, tips, and information necessary for participants to create lasting lifestyle changes in the areas of diet, fitness, mindset, and environment. The program has now served thousands of participants, with more signing up daily.
Lifestyle change can be hard but it can also be surprisingly easy. The key to making change achievable is the practice of setting goals that are realistic and changing them when necessary. It is about not punishing or speaking harshly to yourself when you stray from your goals and remembering that tomorrow can always be a fresh start. It is a process, to be sure, and like most others who have picked up these tools, I am still learning and constantly making changes in the ways I cultivate my own health — 1 day at a time.
As one of our ACLP course graduates pointed out,
When you get cancer, everything is done to you.
This is something I get to do for myself.
As one of our participants said,
Because of this course,
I feel the empowerment that comes
when you are no longer passive,
waiting for cancer.
There is nothing more toxic than a sense of helplessness.
None of us has to be a passive victim in the face of cancer and chronic illness.
For more information, please see the Anticancer Lifestyle Program website, and find us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
Concord, New Hampshire
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