Beating cancer takes more than good luck and a good doctor, a high-tech medical center and exotic drugs. It takes a savvy patient capable of enduring the unexpected and making critical decisions under stress. But every patient is caught off guard: few are acquainted with the foreign terrain of medicine and fewer still understand all the issues and elements of making critical medical decisions.
If you knew what's coming you could get better prepared, make wiser decisions, suffer less anxiety and enjoy more of life as well as help your doctors help you - and have a better outcome. You have to get involved. It is not an easy path, but it is a better path.
This is not a typical blog. It is a course on running the Bell Lap - that segment of life that begins when a cancer diagnosis rings your bell. It will provide you with the savvy, insights and guidance of other patients to make critical decisions and plan your life in spite of cancer. Every race has a beginning which in this case starts with a diagnosis. Everything in the blog will make more sense if you start at its beginning. Each step along the way will be numbered and delivered over 6 months - which may seem too long but I believe it is best digested a bit at a time.
It will walk you from diagnosis to treatment, remission to possible relapse, through the rest of life with cure or without - and beyond. It will teach you how to under stand and engage the medical community, how to relate to family and friends, how to find and cultivate hope - and how to take care of yourself and prosper in the midst of cancer.
If you are wondering what role God may play in a you life with cancer, see the Windrunners Blog.
See the Videos for patient stories that teach cancer life lessons.
See the Biology Section in order to understand cancer.
See the Caregiver Section to build a support community.