Train tickets and egg whites

I am thrilled to report that I finished my radiation treatments this week (Monday, March 23, 2009)! Yep, a total of 38 treatments (7-1/2 weeks’ worth) are now behind me! I am incredibly relieved to have the surgeries, chemo, and radiation parts of my treatment behind me. On my last day of treatment, I brought a Snickers cake to my appointment, along with a card for Dr. K. and his staff. They are a great bunch of people whose expertise, compassion, and humor make a difference in many lives. I wanted them to know how thankful I am for that.

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The Tyranny of Positive Thinking

I’m probably going to step on someone’s toes with this blog entry, but I feel compelled to write it. I touched on this topic once before in my blog, but I feel very strongly that it bears repeating. It’s about the “tyranny of positive thinking.” Jimmie C. Holland, M.D., of Memorial Sloan-Kette ring Cancer Center, coined the term, “the tyranny of positive thinking” in his book, The Human Side of Cancer. Don’ t get me wrong—I believe that having a positive attitude most certainly beats having a bad attitude, especially during hard times. However, there are many people today (including many Christians) , who adhere to “The Gospel According to Oprah.” Basically, it’s a New Age belief (ever read The Secret?) that used to be called “blab-it-an d-grab-it” in Christian circles--the belief that you create any outcome you desire based on positive thinking and speaking.

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St. Theophan the Recluse

Becoming an Orthodox Christian has made profound changes in my life. My spirituality as a Protestant evangelical was mostly based on an intellectual approach to God (and sometimes emotional). It’s hard to explain the difference, but Orthodoxy is so much more . . . holistic. The Orthodox faith is not mechanical or legalistic. It is therapeutic. One of the great tools I have been given in Orthodoxy is to become familiar with the fathers of the Christian faith. One of them who has a special place in my heart is a guy named "Theophan the Recluse.” Here’s a passage I love from, What Is The Spiritual Life and How to Attune Onself to It (herein he counsels a young woman on arranging her life):

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Miracles and healing

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about healing and medicine. I regularly pray that God will use my medical caregivers and the drugs they are giving me as a means of my cure. I know that many people--myself included--think of chemotherapy as something against nature, something that is poison, to be sure. I’ve had people try to talk me out of chemo, to send me off for alternative treatment. And while I do believe that cancer is a malfunction of my immune system and that I need to do whatever I can to rectify whatever set it in motion in the first place, I also know that there are many people walking around today who have been cured from cancer by conventional means. In fact, I read a book called Cancer: 50 Essential Things To Do by an author who had cancer and was not given a good prognosis. He eventually beat cancer and then set about to find out what cancer survivors have in common.

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Waiting for results . . . torture!

This seems like an appropriate spot to talk about what happens AFTER you've had a breast biopsy. You've been told that you may, in fact, have the dread disease of cancer. Your entire life may be (and really is) altered from this day forward. You have no idea what kind of tumor you have, whether it's aggressive, malicious, slow-growing, or what. Then you are sent home with a pink flower to WAIT for the biopsy results. Surely this life circumstance has to rate at the top of the list of torturous experiences for human beings. My Group Health doctor called to say that she would meet with me when the biopsy results came in and let me know the details. She set up an appointment for five days after the biopsy. I didn't know how I would fare mentally for those five days. What I ended up doing was to replay the entrance into her office over and over and over again in my mind, each time imagining good news and bad news and my reaction to each.

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