If you have had cancer – sounds like a bad way to begin a positive and helpful suggestion for a healthful lifestyle. The truth is: if you have had cancer, you are like everyone who has had some life-changing health problem – a heart attack, a kidney stone, or an ulcer. You are no longer like everyone else. You must now address your uniqueness and take the appropriate actions to offset the risks that you have – which others do not have. If you have had cancer, you should address your unique risks with appropriate behaviors.
What are the areas of increased risk?
1. The body’s immune system is attuned to recognizing “foreign” proteins and other molecules that are not normally found in the body. This includes cells that you might make which do not look like normal cells, i.e., cancer cells. Everyone makes occasional cancer cells which the immune system detects and kills. Having one cancer is a warning shot across the bow that your immune system needs some help to work more effectively.
2. The extremely effective – and toxic – chemicals and radiation used to destroy cancers can also destroy the ability of the immune system to detect more cancers – of the same kind or of different kinds. Therefore, the risks of getting a different kind of cancer after having had chemotherapy or radiation is quite high.
3. If you have had cancer, it’s like any other traumatic life experience with the possibility of post-traumatic stress disorder – increased anxiety, nightmares, flashes of anger, difficulty sleeping, irritability, withdrawal from social interactions.
4. We never say that cancer is cured. We say that we are in remission – 5 years or 10 years or 15 years. Cancer is a chronic disease with the danger – like other chronic diseases – of allowing the cancer to govern your life choices and life style.
If you have had cancer, offset these increased risks:
• Make good lifestyle choices: diet, exercise, weight control, regular and adequate sleep
• Faithfully get or do all the recommended cancer screenings
• Offset the psychological risks with exercise, engaging socially, talking to significant others – increase your Faith Factor by seeking a relationship with God, personally and corporately
If you have had cancer, don’t assume that everything will go on normally. You are now different. Take control. Live life to the fullest, but do it thoughtfully and purposefully.