Chicken Soup for the Cancer Survivor's Soul

by Jack Canfield

  I told them any battle with serious illness involved two elements. One was represented by the ability of the physicians to make available to patients the best that medical science has to offer. The other element was represented by the ability of patients to summon all their physical and spiritual resources in fighting illness.

  I said I hoped the veterans would agree that their part of the job was to create an environment in which the doctors could do their best. One thing they might do to replace the grim atmosphere was to put on performances. We could give them scripts of amusing one-act plays. Some of them might wish to produce or direct or act. If they wished, we could help them obtain videocassettes of amusing motion picture films. Ditto, audiocassettes of stand-up comics. One way or another, their part in the joint enterprise with their doctors was to create a mood conducive to the best medical treatment obtainable.

  The veterans accepted the challenge. When I returned to the hospital several weeks later and spoke to the doctors, I was pleased to have them describe the change not just in the general environment but in the mood of the individual patients.

  When I met with the veterans, they no longer sat in a row. They sat in a large circle. They were part of a unity; they could all see one another. When they began their meeting, each veteran was obligated to tell something good that had happened to him since the previous meeting.

  The first veteran spoke of his success in reaching by telephone a buddy he had not seen since the Korean War. He had tracked his buddy to Chicago and finally made the connection. They spoke for a half-hour or more. And the good news was that his buddy was coming to visit him in California.

  Cheers.

  The next veteran read from a letter he had received from a nephew who had just been admitted to medical school. He quoted the final sentence of the letter:

  “And, Uncle Ben, I want you to know that I’m going into cancer research, and I’m going to come up with the answer, so you and your buddies just hang in there until I do.”

  More cheers.

  And so it went, each person at the meeting taking his turn. Then I discovered that everyone was looking at me and that I was expected to report on what it was that was good that had happened to me.

  I searched my recent memory and realized that something quite good had in fact happened to me only a few days earlier.

  “What I have to report is better than good,” I said. “It’s wonderful. Actually, it’s better than wonderful. It’s unbelievable. And as long as I live, I don’t expect that anything as magnificent as this can possibly happen to me again.”

  The veterans sat forward in their seats.

  “What happened is that when I arrived at the Los Angeles airport last Wednesday, my bag was the first off the carousel.”

  An eruption of applause and acclaim greeted this announcement.

  “I had never even met anyone whose bag was the first off the carousel,” I continued.

  Again, loud expressions of delight.

  “Flushed with success, I went to the nearest telephone to report my arrival to my office. That was when I lost my coin. I pondered this melancholy event for a moment or two, then decided to report it to the operator.

  “ ‘Operator,’ I said, ‘I put in a quarter and didn’t get my number. The machine collected my coin.’

  “ ‘Sir,’ she said, ‘if you give me your name and address, we’ll mail the coin to you.’

  “I was appalled.

  “ ‘Operator, I said, ‘I think I can understand the reason behind the difficulties of AT&T. You’re going to take the time and trouble to write down my name on a card and then you are probably going to give it to the person in charge of such matters. He will go to the cash register, punch it open and take out a quarter, at the same time recording the reason for the cash withdrawal. Then he will take a cardboard with a recessed slot to hold the coin so it won’t flop around in the envelope. Then he, or someone else, will fit the cardboard with the coin into an envelope, first taking the time to write out my address on the envelope. Then the envelope will be sealed. Someone will then affix a first-class stamp on the envelope. All that time and expense just to return a quarter. Now, operator, why don’t you just return my coin and let’s be friends.’

  “ ‘Sir,’ she repeated in a flat voice, ‘if you give me your name and address, we will mail you the refund.’

  “Then, almost by way of afterthought, she said, ‘Sir, did you remember to press the coin return plunger?’

  “Truth to tell, I had overlooked this nicety. I pressed the plunger. To my great surprise, it worked. It was apparent that the machine had been badly constipated and I happened to have the plunger. All at once, the vitals of the machine opened up and proceeded to spew out coins of almost every denomination. The profusion was so great that I had to use my empty hand to contain the overflow.

  “While all this was happening, the noise was registering in the telephone and was not lost on the operator.

  “ ‘Sir,’ she said, ‘what is happening?’

  “I reported that the machine had just given up all its earnings for the past few months, at least. At a rough estimate, I said there must be close to four dollars in quarters, dimes and nickels that had just erupted from the box.

  “ ‘Sir,’ she said, ‘will you please put the coins back in the box.’

  “ ‘Operator,’ I said, ‘if you give me your name and address, I will be glad to mail you the coins.’ ”

  The veterans exploded with cheers. David triumphs over Goliath. At the bottom of the ninth inning, with the home team behind by three runs, the weakest hitter in the lineup hits the ball out of the park. A mammoth business corporation is brought to its knees. Every person who had been exasperated by the loss of a coin in a public telephone booth could identify with my experience and share both in the triumph of justice and the humiliation of the mammoth and impersonal oppressor.

  The veterans not only were having a good time; they were showing it in their relaxed expressions and in the way they moved.

  One of the doctors stood up.

  “Tell me,” he said, “how many of you, when you came into this room a half hour or so ago, were experiencing, more or less, your normal chronic pains?”

  More than half the veterans in the room raised their hands.

  “Now,” said the doctor, “how many of you in the past five or ten minutes discovered that these chronic pains receded or disappeared?”

  The same hands, it appeared to me, went up again.

  Why should simple laughter have produced this effect? Brain researchers with whom I have spoken have speculated that the laughter activated the release of endorphins, the body’s own pain-reducing substance. The veterans were experiencing the same effects that had occurred to me in my own bout with inflammatory joints many years earlier. The body’s own morphine was at work.

  In view of what is now known about the role of endorphins not only as a painkiller but as a stimulant to the immune system, the biological value of laughter takes on scientific validity.

  “If you wish to glimpse inside a human soul and get to know a man,” Dostoevski writes in his novel, The Adolescent, “don’t bother analyzing his ways of being silent, of talking, of weeping, or seeing how much he is moved by noble ideas; you’ll get better results if you just watch him laugh. If he laughs well, he’s a good man.”

  Norman Cousins

  “It's a new surgical approach. We keep you in stitches

  so we won't have to sew you up afterwards.”

  Reprinted with permission from Harley Schwadron.

  The Choice Is Yours

  I was living the American dream. I had it all. Happily married to my college sweetheart, I owned and operated a beautiful inn just eighty-four steps from the beach. My husband of seventeen years and I had designed and build our dream house in the foothills of Santa Barbara. I was healthy, happy and active. I loved my life!

  In 1991, my dream life began to shatter. My marriage ended in divorce, and I was
forced to file bankruptcy, losing my business and the dream home I thought I would have for the rest of my life. It was all gone! And if that was not enough hardship, I had to listen to the horrible words of my doctor, “Beverly, you have breast cancer.” I was stunned, shocked and frozen in fear. Destitute and alone and facing a totally uncertain future, I became so depressed and discouraged, I did not care if I lived one more day.

  I struggled through each crisis that best way I knew— taking one day at a time. Yet every situation was out of my control and I was beginning to feel and act like a victim.

  As I began my cancer treatments, I met a friend who was going through similar chemotherapy procedures. We began to talk about what brought us joy, happiness and satisfaction in our lives. One thing that we had in common was our love for bike riding.

  One day, after sharing more cycling stories, we realized that we should bike not just for enjoyment, but to reclaim our lives. We both had been poked, jabbed and prodded— examined like objects. We’d had enough! We were going to take back control of our lives. That’s when I signed up for the One-Hundred-Mile Century Ride.

  The training began just six months after my last chemo treatment. The physical side of the training progressed well, but I had difficulty with the emotional aspect. I could not get past my own self-doubt. I had never done any thing physically challenging, even when I was healthy, and my doctors questioned my ability to do it as well. To overcome my negative self-talk, I wrote out positive statements and read them each day: “I can cross the finish line.” “I can ride one hundred miles.”

  I also asked my family, friends, and medical team to support me with words of encouragement or acts of kindness. When my bike broke, someone loaned me hers. When I was loading up on carbs, my friends brought me buckets of pasta.

  When ride day came, it was a cold, windy September morning. The route began in California’s Central Coast at San Luis Obipso, then headed north on Highway 1 to San Simeon. By the time I got to Highway 1, I felt like I was riding a stationary bike. Hit by powerful head winds, I was peddling and peddling, but getting nowhere. Every inch was a struggle—and I’d only just begun!

  At the half-way point I was thrilled that I’d managed to stay the course that far, but I was already exhausted. After a short lunch break to regain some strength, I was back in the saddle for the return trip. But as the miles clicked away, my back began to scream. Every part of my body hurt, including a few muscles I didn’t know I owned, but I painfully made it to the ninety-mile mark. I’d been in the saddle for seven-and-a-half hours, and I was almost home.

  Then I looked up and was filled with dismay. Directly ahead of me loomed a mountain—a big mountain—and it stood between me and the finish line. It could have been Mt. Everest as far as I was concerned. How was I going to conquer it? I was near collapse. I just wanted to get off the bike and hitchhike home.

  It was at that moment of desperation that all the months of preparation and all the support of my friends flashed before my eyes. “I can cross the finish line,” I told myself. “I love this challenge.” With the voices of my friends, family and medical team cheering me on from within, I put my bike in its lowest gear, and standing on my pedals, I stubbornly inched my way up the mountain.

  Up, up, up. Little by little, refusing to give up, I was climbing. Up, up, up.

  Now the top of the mountain didn’t look as far away as it had at first. Still standing on the pedals and straining every muscle, I was nearing the top. Then all of a sudden the fabulous view opened up beneath me. I had crested the top of the mountain! My bike was beginning to pick up speed again, needing little effort from me. How wonderful it felt as the breeze rushed through me, filling me with life!

  Flying down the mountain, I was heading for the finish line, and nothing on earth could stop me. As I raced across the finish line, I felt a rush of power and elation. I was a survivor. I had summoned the courage to reclaim my life. There was nothing I couldn’t handle. I might have lost my marriage, my money, and temporarily, my health, but I hadn’t lost myself.

  Now I know that I always have a choice. When faced with my next challenge in life, I can either pull off the road and quit or stand up on my pedals and ride.

  I know which I shall choose.

  Beverly Kirkhart

  Having an Attitude

  Attitude is everything in recovery from cancer. You gotta have ’tude if you expect to take a licking and come back ticking.

  Tumor humor is not warm and friendly; it’s scrappy and sometimes nasty and tasteless, a sort of chemotherapy for the spirit—necessary but (not always) nice.

  Robert Lipsyte

  Reaching for the Best

  Each human being possesses a beautiful system for fighting disease. This system provides the body with cancer-fighting cells—cells that can crush cancer cells or poison them one by one with the body’s own chemotherapy. This system works better when the patient is relatively free of depression, which is what a strong will to live and a blazing determination can help to do. When we add these inner resources to the resources of medical science, we’re reaching out for the best.

  Norman Cousins

  The Centerfold

  My wife, Ellen, was lying in a hospital bed, a copy of Playgirl by her side. Suddenly, she opened to the male nude centerfold and insisted I put it on the wall.

  “I think it’s too risqué for the hospital, “ I said.

  “Nonsense,” she replied. “Just take a leaf from the plant over there and cover up the genitals.”

  I did as she requested. This worked well for the first day. Everything was okay for the second day. By the third day, however, the leaf started to shrivel up and reveal more and more of what we were trying to conceal.

  We laughed every time we looked at a plant or a dried-up leaf. The duration of our levity may have lasted only 10 or 20 seconds, but it brought us closer together, revived us and steered us through our sea of darkness.

  Humor instantly took us away, even if only for moments, from our troubles and made them easier to bear. It gave us a breather. It was like a mini-vacation that allowed us to regain our strength and pull our resources together. Ellen’s long illness was hardly a fun time; there were many tense and tearful moments, but there were also periods of laughter. Frequently she poked me in the ribs and admonished, “Hey, stop being so morose. I’m still here. We can still laugh together.”

  Allen Klein

  from The Healing Power of Humor

  The Power of Laughter

  Ten minutes of genuine belly laughter had an anesthetic effect and would give me at least two hours of pain-free sleep.

  Norman Cousins

  Allison Crane, executive director of the American Association for Therapeutic Humor, recounts one story originally told to her by a middle-aged pastor:

  I had a very serious accident a few years ago; it was amazing I survived. And, of course, I was in the hospital for a very long time recuperating.

  Because I was there for so long, I became rather nonchalant with the nurses about the procedures they subjected me to—you can’t keep decorum up for very long with no clothes on. I was also having trouble finding a relatively painless spot to put yet another injection of pain medication....

  One time I rang for the nurse, and when she came on the intercom, I told her I needed another pain shot. I knew it would take just about as long for her to draw up the medication as it would for me to gather the strength to roll over and find a spot for her to inject it. I had successfully rolled over, facing away from the door, when I heard her come in.“I think this are a here isn’t too bad,”I said,pointing to an exposed area of my rear. But there was an awful silence after I said that. that. My face paled as I rolled over slowly to see who had actually come in—it was one of my 22-year-old female parishioners! I apologized and tried to chat with her, but she left shortly thereafter, horribly embarrassed.

  Well, about 30 seconds after she left, the impact of the situation hit me and I started l
aughing. It hurt like you can’t imagine, but I laughed and laughed and laughed. Tears rolled down my face and I was gasping when my nurse finally came in. She asked what had happened. I tried to tell her, but couldn’t say more than a word or two before convulsing into laughing fits again. Amused,she told me she would give me a few minutes to calm down and she’d be back to give me my shot.

  I had just regained my composure when my nurse reappeared and asked again what had happened. I started telling her, got to laughing again, and she started to laugh from just watching me, which made it worse. Finally, she left again,promisingtotrybackin15more minutes.This scenario repeated itself a couple more times, and by the time I told her what had happened, I felt absolutely no pain. None. I didn’t need medication for three more hours. And I know it was an emotional turning point in my recovery.

  Allen Klein

  from The Healing Power of Humor

  Victim or Survivor

  Although the definition said, “A cancer survivor is anyone who has ever been diagnosed with cancer and is alive today,” the first time I read it, I didn’t feel like a cancer survivor. Cancer victim seemed a much more accurate term. But then the dust settled, treatment began, and I realized the “victim” thing just didn’t fit.

  I tossed the victim/survivor issue around and finally came to the conclusion that a victim and a survivor are the same thing—almost. The differences are subtle but at the same time enormous. The first thing I realized is that a survivor is a victim with an attitude. After I understood that, things were a little better. I had a choice about something— I could be a cancer victim or a cancer survivor. I liked the idea of having an attitude and I liked the sound of being a survivor.

  Next, I thought about a friend of mine who had metastatic breast cancer and was the epitome of a cancer survivor. To Barbie, survivorship was a state of mind. Despite the moments of sadness and pain, she never lost her ability to laugh about some of the absurdities of cancer and cancer treatment. She treasured every moment and faced each new situation as best as she could. Eventually, the cancer got her body; however, she never allowed it to reach her spirit. I think of her as a survivor in the truest sense of the word.