Submitted by Dr. Robert F. Lane on
Welcome to the Backstretch - You have a handle on what treatment is about, have accepted your prognosis as possible and are maybe entering remission - GOOD FOR YOU - now your focus can shift.
The backstretch starts with planting seeds of hope and then cultivating them, then searching for ever better seeds and cultivating them because
“The joy in your heart rests on the peace in your soul, which stands on the strength of your hope.” *19
I have heard it said with authority that disappointment is the most common human emotion. I suspect that is true. Of course, that means what you hoped for didn't come through for you. This is sadly an all too common experience for patients with cancer, but it need not be so. There are many things to hope for, some trivial and frivolous, others profound and essential. You must find and name them as there is nothing that fuels the strength to endure hardship like hope. Without it, physical strength and mental fortitude are worthless and rapidly defeated. So it is essential to plant every seed of hope you can find and then prospect for more.
Growing hopes is like growing vegetables — fertilize water and cultivate. Nurturing hope is pretty easy, but good cultivation is a delicate task of identifying the weeds, the false hopes, and pulling them out by the roots. Every gardener knows that weeds have deep roots and so do false hopes. Just as weeds are drought resistant, false hopes are reason resistant, and they grow faster often overshadowing the real ones; they may flower, and look attractive at first, before you discover their poison; they can consume your life faster than any cancer can consume your body.
Remember illness is what happens to your life when disease attacks your body and controlling the illness is your responsibility. If you buy into something false, you’re just expanded the ways the illness can hurt you. So let’s first focus on identifying the counterfeit hopes, the ones you get nothing for when you cash them in. Then you can cast them aside and focus your energy on the real ones that can bring you unfettered joy and will sustain you for the long run.
False hopes will come from well-meaning doctors, friends, family and from deep within your own aching heart. The question is not whether false hopes will appear, but whether you will recognize them as false, and, even if you do, whether you will grab onto them anyway, because you’ve nothing else better to grab. To avoid that, you need to find what it is better so you can let go of what isn’t, or resist grabbing on to it in the first place. Ask yourself, “What is false? How can it hurt and deceive me?”
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