Awareness Week: Surviving Cancer

Hi blog (and others),

Well I promised today (and the rest of the week) would be the start of Awareness Week. So...without further ado, awareness!

A little introduction though. If you look to your right (on the screen, not actually to your right), you'll see the "About Me" thingamajig. Read that. Then look here. I'll wait...good! So yes, I had leukemia (AML to be specific), and have been in remission for about six years now. Obviously some treatments have changed, however, the methods for actually surviving have not. You see, surviving is actually about 85% mental by my estimates. Maybe less. More. I dunno, I'm not a statistician, but in any event, that's my guess. It also works for life in general when things are tough, but for the sake of argument and because this is, at its core, a cancer blog kinda in a way, we'll focus mostly on surviving cancer. So here are five very helpful tips for surviving cancer (and most crappy things life throws at you).

Yes I made a snazzy poster. With colors and pictures no less! (I'm not a huge color person, you don't want to see me wearing red, it's horrendous) And now, some further comments about the above tips.

1. Positivity: It's what it sounds like, the word positive being a major clue. I've actually read studies backing me up, although I am far too behind with this post to actually go find them right now, so you'll just have to take my word on this. Staying positive and keeping a good attitude even when things get bad or you're in a lot of pain actually helps an enormous amount. Not only will your chances of survival increase by a statistically relevant margin, but people who have a positive outlook actually have less pain than people with a negative outlook. So the tip? Flash that beautiful smile and assume the best, because it might just save your life!

2. Laugh loud and laugh often: Following a similar line to the previous tip, try to find some humor in life. It may seem dreary or bleak, hospitals can be very bland places, but find ways to spice it up! Post funny pictures on your off-white walls (you know they are), watch funny movies, listen to your favorite stand up comic, watch old reruns of good sitcoms (preferably ones you like), read a humorous book, have people send you jokes to put in a scrapbook, play benign practical jokes on your doctors and nurses (pretending you've lost an eye by putting Jell-O between your fingers and holding it up to your eye is perhaps borderline), stuff like that! Just like the statistic of positive thinking increasing your chances, you're more likely to be in a good mood if you've been laughing. It may hurt a little, but a bit of pain is a small price to pay for a few joyful tears and grin.

3. Surround yourself with support: It's always helpful to find people who will be there for you when the going gets tough. Family is a good first choice, most families will be more than willing to offer as much assistance as you need and will continue to give it even when things get really rough. Find some really good friends, ones you can depend on to stick with it. There will inevitably be people who will initially offer their support but soon disappear. Don't worry about them, cancer is an unnerving beast at the best of times, some people have a hard time coping with that and don't know what to do. Try not to get mad at them, it's just humans being humans. Instead, focus on how great the people are who stay! Those are the true gems in your life, treasure them always! And remember, don't be afraid to ask for help when you need it, because the people who really care about you will be there by your side.

4. Find a hobby: I know you probably won't have a ton of energy to do stuff, so I don't expect you to go out searching for silver in the Andes mountains in your free time or anything like that. But really do consider finding something you truly enjoy a great deal. Ideally something you can do sitting or lying down. It doesn't necessarily matter what, as long as it makes you happy and passes the time. Time is something you have a lot of and it's good to do things that you like so it seems to just fly by! There's not much more dreary than sitting in a hospital room doing absolutely nothing for hours on end, I can testify to that with much gusto. If you can do something enjoyable, learn a new craft or make something awesome, then I guarantee that it'll be time to go to sleep before you can say "Wow look at this perfect scale model of the International Space Station that I made!"

5. Don't be afraid to ask questions: Doctors are (usually) very smart. They know a lot of things. This means that if you have a question about this or that, they can probably answer it. Just because it can be difficult to follow your treatment plan or there's eight quadrillion different drugs that you have to take doesn't mean you have to sit clueless in your hospital bed staring blankly at a droning doctor until your eyes get stuck that way. If you don't understand something, ask! And be sure to do research as well, there's new treatments coming out all the time, there might be something beneficial that hasn't been explored too thoroughly yet. See what your doctor thinks of that. The nurses too are genius, they know all sorts of little tricks for combating all kinda of ailments, see if they have advice for you. I promise that one or two of them will come up with something that might be of use to you. If not, ask someone else. From my experience the nurses in oncology wards are some of the best around, don't be nervous about asking somebody a question or two, they don't bite (and if they do I bet you could make a lot of money off of a lawsuit so it's a win-win really).

Well that concludes part one of Awareness Week. Click the "Subscribe" button off to the right to get a notification of the next edition coming soon to this blog near you!

And blog? Thank you for being so understanding and letting me post a bunch of semi-ridiculous pictures up on you, I know how much you hate pictures. I dunno why, you're kinda weird.

Sincerely, your pictorially-enamored master, Andrew