The Six Strategies A Road Map To Recovery Cancer Implementation Intelligence

A Road Map to Recovery

Learning from the True Experts

After my surgeon told me I had lung cancer and just thirty days to live, I was stunned. One moment I was in tears, the next I was enraged. I thought it was all a mistake, convinced my tests had been confused with another patient’s. I was filled with fear and self-pity. One afternoon I yelled out loud, “Oh God, what can I do?”

Read And Learn More: Cancer Essential Things To Do A Road Map For All Cancer Patients Treatment Diagnosis

• That question was answered. No, God did not part the clouds and speak; I remain a committed skeptic regarding such claims. But figuratively, the clouds were parted and God did speak. It was nonverbal communication, a distinct impression that my task was to search for survivors.
• I became aware, vitally aware—a knowing—that I was to seek people who were “supposed” to die but had lived. And once I found them, I was to learn from their experience.

Over the years, I have interviewed and received surveys from over 16,000 survivors of “terminal” illnesses.

• These are the people who have been told the equivalent of “Get your affairs in order. You are about to die.” They are the brave patients who, at one time, had no hope—the people the medical community wrote off. But these same people lived.
• These inspiring individuals, who possess no more courage or ability than you or me, teach some very powerful lessons from which we would be well-served to learn.
• These ideas and practices have worked successfully for me and hundreds ot thousands of other cancer patients. I am convinced these lessons and strategies can be pivotal in your life and your health.
• After I conducted over 500 interviews, it became clear there were shared patterns to most of the individual outcomes. For example, the vast majority of survivors do not believe they recovered their health by chance or by being passive. The triumphant patients worked for their wellness, earning it on a daily basis.
• Neither do most cancer survivors credit their doctors alone, or even primarily, for their recovery. Instead, these exceptional patients focus on personally mobilizing body, mind, and spirit in their quest for high-level wellness.

Consistent patterns emerged from the survivor interviews. In 1988,1 first summarized them and combined them into an eight- strategy program. In 2006, after thousands of additional interviews, I further refined them into six easily understood concepts that anyone could understand and put to use. Today, through Cancer Recovery Foundation International, over ten million people have used these principles as a road map, a strategic plan to enhance their health and enrich their lives. I want the same for you.

The Six Strategies

Before we come to the “50 Essential Things,” Fd like to give you an overview of the six basic approaches that cancer survivors have in common. Here is what emerged from the survivor interviews.

Strategy Medical Treatment

Over 96 percent of cancer survivors start and complete at least one treatment program that is grounded in conventional medical care. Surgery, radiation therapy, chemotherapy, hormonal therapy, and immunotherapy—often in combination—are the treatments of choice. I was both surprised and encouraged by this.

• Let me be very clear. Orthodox treatments have an important role in cancer survival. The overwhelming majority of cancer survivors embrace conventional medical care. This is a very important message.
• But there is a significant issue that has become much clearer since we first started our work. It’s the gross inconsistency in the medical treatment prescribed for similar diagnoses.
• Take breast cancer as an example. Although several well-designed studies have clearly demonstrated that Breast Conserving Treatment (BCT) for stage I and II disease has the same success rate as mastectomy, the removal of the breast remains the predominant treatment.

There are marked regional differences, with women in larger cities more likely to receive BCT than those in rural areas.

• There is even a study showing double mastectomy, where both breasts are removed even when cancer exists in only one, is the fastest-growing breast cancer treatment. All this despite the fact that the outcomes are statistically the same.
• This same treatment inconsistency is seen across virtually all cancers. This is why patients everywhere must take matters into their own hands, demanding full knowledge and explanation of all treatment options.
• Thankfully, the amount of treatment information now available is significant. Demanding hard evidence regarding the effectiveness of suggested treatments is the key. So while 96 out of 100 surviving patients still opt for conventional treatments, their treatment decisions are more informed today than ever before. Do likewise.
• Importantly, cancer survivors do not stop with conventional medical treatment. As you study the “50 Essential Things,” you will see how survivors take charge of the management of their entire health and well-being.
• They choose doctors in whom they have confidence, often researching their educational background and clinical track record. Survivors consent only to treatment programs in which they have high confidence. Plus, survivors aggressively integrate complementary and alternative approaches with traditional medical care.
• Survivors are active patients, involved with each decision, making certain they are fully informed and understand each component of their recovery program. Conventional medicine, yes. Patient control, even more. It is a prominent theme among cancer survivors.

Strategy Nutrition

Following medical care, dietary changes are the most common strategy adopted by cancer survivors. The increasing importance of nutrition in cancer recovery has been one of the most significant shifts in the last decade. No longer is the old “Eat whatever you want” theory widely accepted.

Today, viewing “food as medicine” is the norm among cancer survivors. The most common nutritional shifts are toward diets that feature the following:

• Whole foods
• Foods low in fat, salt, and sugar
• An emphasis on fresh vegetables, fresh fruits, and whole grains
• Pure water

The single major dietary shift is consuming foods that are less processed. If it is boxed or bottled or canned or packaged, the food comes under immediate suspicion. These prepared foods tend to deliver calories with less nutrition than their fresh counterparts. In practice, cancer survivors spend most of their grocery shopping time in the produce section of their local market.

• Nutritional supplements, while not taking the place of a whole-food diet, are widely employed by cancer survivors.
• While there exists a lack of consensus in actual practice, survivors widely recognize the role of vitamin, mineral, and herbal supplements in the management of cancer. Thankfully, better science is producing evidence to support nutrition as a central element in cancer recovery.
• One other observation on nutrition: cancer survivors eat with awareness.
• There has been a marked increase in “nutritional IQ” among cancer patients, especially over the past twenty years.
• Nutrition, not simply calories, has become the emerging battle cry of cancer patients in Western cultures. And survivors carry i the attitude that a healthy diet is something they “get” to do, as opposed to something they “have” to do, to contribute to their survival. More specifics on nutrition will be found later in this book.

Strategy Exercise

• Survivors engage in some form of physical exercise virtually every day. Cancer Recovery Foundation was the first organization to document this trend over twenty years ago. It has accelerated. Today, science is catching up with the survivors’ practices and confirming the significant benefits of exercise.
• Nearly nine out of ten cancer survivors I have interviewed and surveyed affirm the role of regular physical exercise in their own journey. I talked to bikers, swimmers, joggers, and walkers—lots of walkers. A brisk twenty-minute walk each day, with moderate strength training every other day, seems to be ideal. Do you know what? That’s something all of us can do.
• Most inspiring are the patients who started exercise programs even while confined to hospital beds or wheelchairs. In spite of physical limits, these people exercised. If you seek to overcome cancer, physical exercise needs to be an important part of your program.

Strategy Attitude

Survivors believe they will survive. Survivors embrace beliefs that generate attitudes and, in turn, create emotions that nurture healing. This is the mind-body connection. It is powerful.

• Do beliefs and attitudes actually heal? Survivors see a direct link. They choose beliefs and attitudes about illness and wellness that empower them. The most fundamental and empowering belief is that cancer does not mean death. It’s sad but true that much of the world still considers cancer and death to be synonymous. Survivors emphatically reject that belief.
• This does not translate into denial, or some “be-positive-against-all-evidence” thinking. It’s a warrior’s attitude that survivors demonstrate.
• There is a marked tough-mindedness in the cancer survivor community—“feistiness,” as actress Suzanne Somers once described it. You see it everywhere.
• Survivors face this truth: cancer may or may not mean death. This set of beliefs and attitudes results in emotions that carry vastly different outlooks from either the super-positive or hopelessly negative cancer patients.

“Yes, I may die,” said Chris Winters, a thirty-something California housewife.

• “But I am going to live to the fullest with cancer. I am not going to die of fear and hopelessness.”
• I want you to know that Chris’s attitude is the essence of survivorship. These essential beliefs extend to medical treatments and potential side effects. Survivors envision their treatments as highly effective.
• They further believe side effects will be minimal and manageable. The “50 Essential Things” will help you understand and apply these attitudes of healing to your own integrated cancer care program.
• You will not be surprised to learn that survivors believe they have the absolute central role in the recovery process. This belief and resulting attitude is at complete odds with millions of other cancer patients who defer virtually every question to their doctors. Not survivors.
• It’s surprising: survivors have interesting relationships with their medical team. They want the best of care and respect those healthcare professionals who speak truth, patiently explaining what evidence supports their treatment recommendations and what outcomes can be expected.

But if that information is not freely forthcoming, survivors can be exceptionally confrontational. Survivors check and recheck physician recommendations, often challenging tests, treatments, and prognoses. Many survivors change doctors in search of those who can be trusted and who meet their expectations.

Strategy Support

Relationships. Survivors invest time and emotional energy in relationships that nurture. They also invest less time and energy in relationships that are toxic. While this may seem to be a benign practice, it has some surprising holistic health implications.

• Loving relationships with friends, relatives, lovers, spouses, children, coworkers, and employees—or the lack of those relationships— build us up or tear us down. Survivors become “relationship sensitive,” examining, perhaps for the first time in their lives, how they relate to other people.
• It is quite common for survivors to put difficult relationships on hold, especially during any debilitating treatment phase. This does not mean survivors exile toxic people from their lives for all time. But it certainly signals reduced emotional and even spiritual investment in those relationships.
• Cancer gives patients permission to examine a wide variety of life choices, especially their network of social support. Changes are often made.
• That is helpful because much of the work of getting well again takes place within the patient’s social support network. The last thing a cancer patient needs is a critical person second-guessing every decision or predicting ultimate doom.

New and important research is now demonstrating the health benefits of supportive relationships. As much as I wish the research extended to the health benefits of cancer support groups, it currently does not show conclusive proof of benefits. But this much we know to be true of support: survivors have at least one person with whom they can share everything, literally everything, without fear of judgment. That is a powerful healing elixir.

Strategy Spiritual

Cancer survivors embrace a more spiritual perspective. They repeatedly speak of seeing life differently now compared to before their brush with death. This spiritual outlook stands in marked contrast to other cancer patients who obsess over a body that may be riddled with disease or endlessly mourn over dreams that are hopelessly derailed.

• Survivors surprise me in that they always seem to be able to grasp the high value of “now”—the simple and readily available life that is theirs even in spite of cancer. “I have today,” said Doris, a fifty-year-old colon cancer patient. “That’s a lot to be grateful for.”
• RIB labels spirituality as a “strategy” is inadequate. Survivors tend to undergo a spiritual transformation that is quite deep. For thousands of people, it becomes the central focus of their entire lives. In essence, they become new people.
• This more spiritual perspective is not an issue of religion. Many survivors reject traditional religious practices.

It’s an old adage: Just because you sit in a garage does not mean you will become a car. And just because you sit in a church does not mean you will become more spiritual. Clearly, no single doctrine or creed brings prepackaged answers.

• Nor does this spirituality simply consist of bland platitudes. Instead, the transformation is typically seen as actively cultivating inner peace, a serenity, a quiet confidence, a more grateful and joyful way of living.
• In a very real sense, survivors have come to let God work in and through them. Marianne Kegan, an ovarian cancer survivor, explained the essential nature of the spiritual walk. She said, “Now when I walk into a room, I am there serving as God’s representative.” For millions of cancer survivors, this is the apex of the healing journey.

Implementation Intelligence

Each of these six strategies is important and essential to cancer survival. However, they are not always equal. Timing is an issue. If the decision is made to consider and commence medical treatment, nearly all the emphasis tends to be placed on that area. Once in place, survivors let the doctors treat them while they focus on nutrition, exercise, attitude, and the holistic aspects of getting well again.

• Implementation of one principle typically follows another at the appropriate time. Few survivors make simultaneous whole- | sale changes. 1 those who do attempt to change too much too i quickly often meet with temporary defeat and have to start again.
• Many survivors note that solving a relationship issue may have been just as important in their recovery as medical treatment. Adopting a healthy nutritional program and making a commitment to daily exercise may be on par with the contribution of radiation or chemotherapy.
• It takes us back to where we started. We first review our state of health. That state is a result of the many interactive components of body, mind, and spirit. Yes, cell biology may be a component, but it is more often the result, the end game, of a host of other lifestyle choices.
• Nearly all survivors agree it is the balance, the comprehensive integrated approach, that makes for survivorship. The survivors believe they have earned their return to health, aligning themselves with their own immense healing capacity. “Healing springs from within,” said Randall Washington. “I simply had to work with God to release it.”
• Let’s summarize this point. The integration of these six key strategies represented by the cancer survival pyramid creates the framework for the cancer recovery process:

The cancer survival pyramid is the context, the strategic plan, in which the “50 Essential Things” are implemented. The pyramid is your big picture, your road map. Consult it often.