Advice/Tips – Living Well While Surviving Cancer

Embrace Life and Live Well in 2020

Live life every day!

As we look forward to the future, we need to be thankful for what we have. And not be unhappy for what we don’t have. Now, we offer our annual message. To embrace life and choose happiness in 2020.

Why We Should Embrace Life and Live Well in 2020

As many of you may know, I am a VERY lucky survivor of pancreatic cancer. Thus, I am thankful each and every day to celebrate the blessing of life. On February 12, 2020, it will be five years since I had my successful Whipple surgery. My longevity is related to my embracing life and choosing happiness.

Only 7 percent of those diagnosed with pancreatic cancer survive for 5 years. Thus, I am both happy and sad.

Today, I want to share some FREE resources I have developed and tell my personal story. Why? To provide hope and serenity for anyone with a serious disease and their loved ones. We must never forget that our caregivers suffer and endure along with us.

Resources to Better Embrace Life and Choose Happiness

Since recovering from my surgery and follow-up chemotherapy, I view my life’s mission as assisting others with a terrible illness. To me, this is a responsibility that I welcome as one of the relatively few long-term pancreatic cancer survivors. In my mind and heart, I MUST give back.

So, please take a look at these resources.

Surviving Cancer and Embracing Life: My Personal Journey

With this book, I want to share my personal cancer journey with you. I want to offer hope and support to those dealing with a terrible disease and their families. Why? To quote the late NY Yankee star Lou Gehrig when he was honored at Yankee Stadium while dying from ALS: “Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.”

The book is a hopeful, but realistic, view of my journey from diagnosis through treatment through return to work and my being able to walk my daughter down the aisle at her wedding. It has some humor and many quotes to ease the reading.

Click the book cover to download a FREE copy of the book. Then, share it with someone you love.

LIVING WELL While Surviving Cancer

During the summer of 2018, I started a new blog to share health-related information and inspirational stories. It features infographics, videos, articles, and more. And despite the title, it relates to a wide range of health issues.

Click the image to visit the blog. Then, PLEASE sign up to follow us.

Other Resources

Finally, check out these resources. and sign up to join me Welcome aboard!

- - - - Facebook Page: Welcome to Living Well with Cancer
        
        LinkedIn Group: Living Well While Surviving Cancer
        
        Twitter Page: Living Well with Cancer (@well_cancer)
- My personal advice:
  - - - Do not avoid the doctor because you are afraid of what he/she may find.
        
        Early detection is the best way to mitigate your health problems. Have regular checkups and blood tests.
        
        Listen to the medical professionals!
        
        Surround yourself with family and friends who are supportive.
        
        Be upbeat; getting down is counter productive. [(a) When diagnosed, I set two goals: to dance at my daughter’s October 2015 wedding and to deliver a toast. Mission accomplished. I never thought these things wouldn’t happen. (b) People don’t believe me when I remark that I never said “why me”? Instead I say, “boy was I lucky to be diagnosed so early.”]
        
        Seek out your friends/acquaintances who have also dealt with cancer. They can be a wonderful resource and sounding board (when you don’t want to further burden your family).
        
        Be active. [I went to the gym while undergoing chemotherapy.]
        
        Live for tomorrow and the time thereafter.
        
        And to give back as much as I can, since July 2019, I am volunteering twp days a week with United Cerebral Palsy of Long Island. I LOVE it and find it so rewarding. If you decide to volunteer, you’ll see that it’s a win-win!!!!!

Be Careful Selling YOUR Health Data

Know you privacy rights!

To sell us more goods and services, companies of all types really want a hold of our health date. Some firms will even pay us for data. But should you do this? Is the exchange worthwhile? Our data in trade for a fee.

This practice is the opposite of our goals in a prior post. Getting Your Health Care Provider to Be More Responsive

So, let’s consider these observations by Thorin Klosowski, writing for the NY Times:

“If you work for a company with employer-sponsored health insurance, there’s a chance you’ve come across wellness programs such as UnitedHealthcare Motion, Humana Go365, Attain by Aetna, and Vitality (The New York Times offers Vitality to its employees).”

“Each program works similarly, offering some type of discount or financial incentive in exchange for reaching goals, usually verified by requesting health data collected by a phone or fitness tracker. Insurance companies offer these programs to encourage people to begin or maintain healthy habits, like eating well and exercising, thus reducing health care costs. Employers offer them as a way to provide financial rewards you can use toward the cost of insurance or gift cards.”

But, should you sell your health data?

“The health information you share with insurance companies, HMOs, health care providers, or company health plans is protected by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), which helps keep your data private. But not all workplace wellness programs are covered by HIPAA.”

“Pam Dixon, executive director of World Privacy Forum, says, ‘The best thing to do is take a close look at the privacy policy for that program. If it is a HIPAA-covered program, they’re going to have a Notice of Privacy Practices.’ Look for phrases like ‘your rights under HIPAA,’ ‘Notice of Privacy Practices,’ or ‘NPP’ in the privacy policy. If you see the term ‘we are HIPAA-compliant, the basic rule of thumb is the program does not fall under HIPAA. ‘”

Click the image to learn more.

Be Careful Selling YOUR Health Data — **Image by Yann Bastard.**

Cancer Site Links from the American Institute for Cancer Research

Learn more about different forms of cancer.

On Tuesday, we highlighted four videos from the AICR. Now, we feature links to several of its pages on specific types of cancer. Here are some of them:

To learn more, click the image to visit the site.

Videos from the American Institute for Cancer Research

Four informative (and short) videos.

The AICR offers a large number of resources related to cancer. Today, we highlight some of its videos.

Insights on Friendship

Be a friend indeed to someone in need.

Want to be a great friend? Check out this article from Emma Pattee, writing for the NY Times. Then, read the inspiring story after that.

“If you want closer friendships, the first step is to decide you’re going to do something about it. ‘We think about relationships as things that happen to us, but the truth is that we make them happen,’ psychologist Dr. Sue Johnson said. Getting closer to your existing friends requires making the time and being intentional.”

“Before we can attempt closeness, we need to have security. Through his research, Dr. Amir Levine (a psychiatrist and a neuroscientist) has identified the five foundational elements of secure relationships, which he refers to as CARRP.”

- - - Consistency (Do these friends drift in and out of my life on a whim?)
    - Availability (How available are they to spend time together?)
    - Reliability (Can I count on them if I need something?)
    - Responsiveness (Do they reply to my emails and texts? Do I hear from them on a consistent basis?)
    - Predictability (Can I count on them to act in a certain way?)

Click the image to read a lot more from Pattee.

Insights on Friendship — **Image by Jan Robert Dünnweller**

A Terrific Story of an Act of Kindness

Good deeds sometimes get recognized in a big way. Consider this heartwarming story. As reported by Alexandra Deabler for Fox News:

“A Denny’s waitress is feeling very thankful after a generous couple of diners gifted her a car.

“Adrianna Edwards of Galveston, Texas, used to walk 14 miles a day to get to her job at the diner chain. The entire journey took her more than four hours. ‘You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do,’ Edwards said to KTRK of her long trek.”

“Edwards was in the process of saving to buy a car when a kind couple took matters into their own hands. The pair, who reportedly requested to remain anonymous, visited the restaurant last Tuesday morning for breakfast. It was then they learned of Edwards’ long trips to and from work each day.”

“After eating their meal, the couple left. Only to return hours later with the surprise of a lifetime — a 2011 Nissan Sentra they had just purchased, KTRK reports. The couple was happy to help Edwards out, but requested that she pay it forward to others in need, which the woman has said she intends on doing.”

Alone Time May Be Good

Sometimes, we may benefit from time by ourselves.

In this blog, we have talked a lot about the value of our community. As well as socialization.

For example, look at these two posts: Social Interactions and Our Health. And We Are NOT Alone.

Now, we consider the benefits of sometimes being alone. Yes, we can be both a socializer and also pursue some alone time.

As Micaela Marini Higgs observes for the NY Times:

“Being lonely hurts. It can even negatively impact your health. But the mere act of being alone doesn’t have to be bad. In fact, experts say it can even benefit your social relationships, improve your creativity and confidence, and help you regulate your emotions so that you can better deal with adverse situations.”

“An online survey called The Rest Test showed that the majority of activities people defined as most restful are things that are done solo.”

“Despite the social stigma and apprehension about spending time alone, it’s something our bodies crave. Similar to how loneliness describes being alone and wanting company, ‘aloneliness’ can be used to describe the natural desire for solitude, Dr. Robert Coplan [a developmental psychologist and professor of psychology at Carleton University] said. Since we’re not used to labeling that feeling, it can easily be confused for, and feed into, other feelings like anxiety, exhaustion, and stress, especially since ‘we might not know that time alone is what we need to make ourselves feel better,’ Dr. Coplan added.”

Click the image to read a lot more from Higgs.

Alone Time May Be Good — **Image Credit: Filip Fröhlich**

Podcasts to Help You Relax

How to chill out. 🙂

Being able to relax should be an essential part of our quest to be as healthy as possible. With this in mind, we turn to the AAA for several appropriate podcast links:

To read more from Sarah Hopkins’ tips for AAA, click the image.