5 - HEROES ARE WINNERS AND YOU CAN BE ONE

If cancer has announced YOUR bell lap, what will you do? No one enters a race to lose, yet some in the human race collapse on the track when the bell rings, or they just turn tail and take off in the wrong direction. This book is not about them. It's about those who set out to win, not just in terms of health, but also in life.

Anyone can be victorious, but it doesn't come easily or without work. No one can do it for you. This is do-it-yourself stuff. You can't buy it. You can't hire it out. You are the only contestant in your race. Winning doesn't look the same for everyone, but it feels the same --exhilarating. You can absolutely be a hero. Our culture labels cancer survivors as heroes and applauds them – but many are just lucky: lucky that the disease was caught early, lucky the cancer was susceptible to the treatments available and lucky they found good doctors. But there is nothing heroic about luck! 

It is not survivorship that makes the hero; it is how they survive, how they have run their bell lap. Some heroes will die, some will live and most will live longer than expected. It is entirely up to you whether you become one - not up to luck and the fickle behavior of a disease or the brilliance of doctors.

BE PREPARED – part 1

What do you do when a storm-driven sailboat snaps its mast or is run aground; or when a climber gets high-altitude pulmonary edema or falls into a crevasse; or when your car crashes off a bridge into the water; when you are lost in the mountains without shelter or in the desert without water; when faced with a pilot having a heart attack. The Boy Scouts left an indelible mark on me with the motto “ Be Prepared” and I have been preparing for every calamity my patients might face in the hospital or I might face in the wilderness . I am still working on how to ditch the plane if a pilot collapses and I am preparing how to live my life if I ever get cancer. Learning from others who have survived calamities at sea, in the mountains and in front of bears has saved my bacon more than once and my patients have taught how to face death - things that are making my life better now already.

CHECK OUT YOUR DOCTORS - part 1

Investigate your doctor. Charm doesn't guarantee competency - quacks have plenty of it. Knowledge about ....see CANCER'S BELL LAP

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