Jim and I celebrated my first stage 4 cancer diagnosis anniversary on June 27th. Thankfully, my first line of treatment has been working…until now. Or maybe it will continue to work for a bit longer.
My latest scans showed some progression. Metastatic involvement throughout the spine, pelvis, ribs. A lymph node enlargement. But I’m still the little engine that could.
I’m attending my first in-person medical conference this September and will share my story on a panel. My oncologist is excited about starting me on a Phase-One drug trial this fall. My team of doctors say, ‘Hang in there. You’re doing great.’
Since getting diagnosed (again) this past year and delving into patient advocacy, I probably get 30 to 50 medical articles a day through email or from friends who are in the same situation as me. This paragraph from an article published by the National Library of Medicine caught my attention today:
The field of psycho-oncology is hung up on the hyphen in its name. How do we understand the link between mind and body? Is that hyphen merely an arrow to the left, indicating that cancer in the body affects the mind? Can it be an arrow to the right as well, mind affecting the course of cancer? We know that social support affects survival, including that with cancer. Also, people tend to die after rather than before their birthdays and major holidays. Depression worsens survival outcome with cancer. Yet we have been understandably delicate about mind-body influence, not wanting to claim too much, or to provide unwitting support for overstated claims that wishing away cancer or picturing white blood cells killing cancer cells would actually do it. That arrow to the right is a connection, not a superhighway. Yet in our desire to be respected members of the oncology community we have often minimized a natural ally in the battle against cancer – the patient’s physiological stress coping mechanisms.
So here I am today. Despite this latest scan… I AM DOING GREAT!