A diagnosis of cancer is a crisis. No one thinks clearly after hearing “it’s cancer.” It is probably the worse possible time to have to make the decisions you are facing, but decisions must be made.
If like most people, you falter and pause to think, a “team” of professionals is gathered within minutes of your diagnosis. Your life is now in the hands of an oncologist, a surgeon, a radiologist and others you have never even met. This team will guide you down the path they have designed for you because they do it everyday, but you haven’t. It is all new.
In one moment you took your seat in the waiting room and the next you are signed up to take the ride, with an “E” ticket in your hand. The problem is, this is not Disneyland and it is not the “happiest place on earth.”
The urgency with which a treatment plan is made would make you believe there is seemingly no time to waste. The truth is, there is time. Cancer takes years to grow. Certainly one could take a few days or weeks to do the proper research to learn the vast possibilities for treatment. More and more, people are opting to use alternatives or a combination of treatments, because of the failing statistics and harshness of chemotherapy.
The time to make decisions about cancer are not best done from a gurney, or in a gown. You are useless at that point. Fear makes bad decisions.
Your best research is done now, before a crisis and without a threat. There are some wonderful things being done, beginning with diet, that can assist a traditional or non-traditional treatment plan.
The options for cancer treatment run from whacky, to reasonable to horrifying. To be sure there are proponents for all of these possibilities, but it is you that must decide. The days of following into traditional cancer treatment have passed. We now know there are options, but they take a bit of research to find what is best for you.
Your body is your responsibility. Allowing strangers to decide what treatment is best without some research is irresponsible. You wouldn’t let the painter choose the color of your house. Why would you jump into a failing cancer machine and just cross your fingers?
If like most people, you falter and pause to think, a “team” of professionals is gathered within minutes of your diagnosis. Your life is now in the hands of an oncologist, a surgeon, a radiologist and others you have never even met. This team will guide you down the path they have designed for you because they do it everyday, but you haven’t. It is all new.
In one moment you took your seat in the waiting room and the next you are signed up to take the ride, with an “E” ticket in your hand. The problem is, this is not Disneyland and it is not the “happiest place on earth.”
The urgency with which a treatment plan is made would make you believe there is seemingly no time to waste. The truth is, there is time. Cancer takes years to grow. Certainly one could take a few days or weeks to do the proper research to learn the vast possibilities for treatment. More and more, people are opting to use alternatives or a combination of treatments, because of the failing statistics and harshness of chemotherapy.
The time to make decisions about cancer are not best done from a gurney, or in a gown. You are useless at that point. Fear makes bad decisions.
Your best research is done now, before a crisis and without a threat. There are some wonderful things being done, beginning with diet, that can assist a traditional or non-traditional treatment plan.
The options for cancer treatment run from whacky, to reasonable to horrifying. To be sure there are proponents for all of these possibilities, but it is you that must decide. The days of following into traditional cancer treatment have passed. We now know there are options, but they take a bit of research to find what is best for you.
Your body is your responsibility. Allowing strangers to decide what treatment is best without some research is irresponsible. You wouldn’t let the painter choose the color of your house. Why would you jump into a failing cancer machine and just cross your fingers?