Victim or Survivor  

Dr. Al Danenberg ● Nutritional Periodontist

November 6, 2022 [printfriendly]

 

My 4-year cancer journey has led me down many different paths …

• In September 2018, I was given a diagnosis of incurable bone marrow cancer with a prognosis of 3-6 months to live.
• In August 2019, I fractured many bones on my right side at the same time and was placed into a hospice hospital to die.
• In September 2019, I revoked hospice and returned to thriving.
• In May 2020, my PET Scan showed no active cancer cells in my body.
• In June 2021, I contracted severe COVID with lingering long haulers, which reactivated my bone marrow cancer.
• After February 2022, I experienced numerous pathological bone fractures because of the reactivation of malignant myeloma, which was eroding the inside of my bones.

Most of these events easily could have made me feel like a victim.

I am only human. And being human, I have had significant but short bouts of depression. But I owe my strength to my wife, Sue, who always has been there to lift me up by my bootstraps and out from the abyss of depression.

She and I are a team, and she has helped me regain my focus whenever necessary.

 

Current Challenges

Sue has been in the hospital since 10/9/22. That’s 4 weeks and counting. She has seen some success only to be minimized by further complications. It almost seems like she was moving 2 steps forward and then 1 step back.

But finally, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. She just was moved into the Rehab Center located in the hospital. This Rehab Center is one of the best in South Carolina.

After going through extensive physical and occupational therapy, she finally will get out of the hospital and move into our new apartment. I excitedly have been preparing our new home for her return to me and to our life together.

But there is another wrinkle.

I had a CT scan of my brain on 11/1/22, which showed progression of a new mass of myeloma cells invading my right parietal bone. This new development is the manifestation of the damage to my immune system from COVID, which I contracted at the end of June 2021.

But I’ve been here before. I’ve had dire prognoses from the first day I was diagnosed with bone marrow cancer. So, I have experience along the road less traveled.

Once again, my journey is being tested and challenged. Once again, I could ask myself, “Am I a victim, or am I a survivor?” But once again, my quick and easy answer is, “I am a survivor!

 

Positivity

I have learned throughout my life and certainly during my cancer journey that attitude is critical to success. A positive attitude is not Pollyanna thinking. There is science that demonstrates that patients with a positive outlook have more healing success physically and emotionally than those who have negative and destructive thoughts.[1],[2]

Norman Cousins, MD, wrote about healing and a positive attitude.[3] His writings have revolutionized modern approaches to mind, body, and spirit.

In contrast to a person with a positive attitude, I know a woman who has a terrible attitude. She has many medical issues but is self-sufficient and lives by herself in her own home. She exudes negative energy. She is upset with her life. She hates where she lives. She says terrible things about people who try to show her caring and empathy. She turns almost everyone away from her. Her circle of friends seems to be dwindling and not supportive only because she turns them off. She will never heal physically and emotionally. She is going down a deep and dark hole that could have been avoided if she only had a different attitude toward life.

 

Stressing vs Coping

Stressing is when you apply emotional pressure to yourself, and you become worried and agitated.

Coping is when you successfully manage stressful circumstances and make the effort to solve them. By coping, you can master, minimize, reduce, or tolerate the stress.

Your attitude dictates if you stress excessively or if you cope effectively.

Stressing can get the better of us. And experiencing too many life’s bumps within a brief time often creates a sense of lack of control. This perception contributes to the development of anxiety, depression, and self-victimization.

Coping strategies for stressful life changes can help you keep a positive self-image and assist your body in healing.

Here are some coping mechanisms which may help:

• Thoroughly research your options and solutions.
• Lower your expectations.
• Ask others to help or assist you.
• Take responsibility for the situation.
• Engage in problem solving.
• Seek emotionally supportive relationships.
• Maintain emotional composure.
• Challenge previously held beliefs that are no longer valid.
• Directly attempt to change the source of stress.
• Distance yourself from the source of stress.
• View the problem through a spiritual perspective.

Coping is a process rather than an individual event. Combining several of these coping strategies will provide the best results.

And the most important coping strategy appears to have emotionally supportive relationships with others. This is what I have enjoyed with my wife, Sue.

Here are some stress-reducing activities to help your ability to cope:

• Eat nutrient-dense, animal-based meals as I describe in my Better Belly Blueprint and Eat As If Your Life Depends On It.
• Exercise efficiently.
• Sleep restoratively.
• Take brief rest periods during the day to relax.
• Take vacations away from home and work.
• Engage in pleasurable or fun activities every day.
• Practice relaxation exercises such as yoga, prayer, meditation, or progressive muscle relaxation.
• Avoid use of caffeine and alcohol.

 

Victim or Survivor

Your attitude affects how you deal with life-changing stresses. Do you allow them to overwhelm you and make you a victim? Or do you force yourself to cope with these changes in such a way to enhance your quality of life and assist your body in healing?

If you view yourself as a victim, you will never overcome what you perceive is devastating your life. As a survivor, you always will improve your situation no matter how dire it might be. Even individuals near the end of life can prepare positively for their transition.

There is a series of audio tapes that was developed by the Monroe Institute and Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. These tapes help an individual who is dying to transition in a positive way. They also aid caregivers who are tending to the person who is dying.

If you are in a situation when death is imminent or anticipated, I highly recommend these audio tapes to ease the transition from life to death. As a person enters the last moments of conscious life, his or her mind continues to function. The mind is the manifestation of thought, perception, emotion, determination, memory, and imagination that takes place within the physical structure of the brain.

As a matter of fact, the mind can still hear when other signs of death have occurred.[4] To this end, the Monroe Institute[5] produced this specialized audio series with guided imagery for the caregiver and the dying person to listen to even after “death” has clinically occurred. The series is called, Going Home, and here are three links to these audio tapes HERE, HERE, HERE.

 

I Am a Survivor

In all my writings, I have emphasized that my goals are to heal my body as best as possible and to maintain my quality of life for as long as I can. To this end, a positive attitude has helped me accomplish these goals. I do not have a cure for any disease or cancer. But I have developed my series of Protocols to reach these goals. And I have been successful in managing these goals.

My current challenges are just challenges that require me to cope effectively and make the best of the situations that confront me. I am not in denial. I am a realist. But I know that a positive attitude can help prevent me from being a victim and help assure me of being a survivor.

I look forward to continuing my virtual coaching and consults, to creatively writing and publishing my blogs, and sharing my ideas of a healthy way of eating and living to all who want to listen and learn from one who has been to the edge of death and has returned triumphantly.

How do you cope with the hurdles that life throws your way? Do you see yourself as a victim or a survivor? Share your stress-reducing activities in the comment section – I’d love to hear them!

 

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6124958/pdf/10.1177_1559827614550277.pdf

[2] https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/in-depth/positive-thinking/art-20043950

[3] https://www.amazon.com/Norman-Cousins-Books/s?k=Norman+Cousins&rh=n%3A283155

[4] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-67234-9?fbclid=IwAR1wWgWCtFDAV7BUtc8YV0NGUVucjiSpzZ-bkkihE5P3eHjwE8a4kBNAlaQ

[5] https://www.monroeinstitute.org/

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