False Hopelessness

When Dr. David Servan-Schreiber was diagnosed with a recurrence of brain cancer, he asked his physicians what he could do to help himself, to reduce his chances of yet another recurrence and to improve his shot at a long and healthy life. He was told that there was nothing he could do, to "do whatever he wanted" in regard to diet and other lifestyle choices, it would make no difference. When I asked my medical physicians for dietary advice, they recommended Ensure (with its plethora of chemicals, dyes, and preservatives). Dog owners are often offered courses of chemotherapy and radiation which they cannot afford, and then offered no other option, except euthanasia. This myopic perspective promotes total dependence on medical intervention and creates a sense of false hopelessness.

A cancer diagnosis does not make a patient passively at the mercy of his or her doctors. Medicine may have a brilliant role to play in the recovery and survival from cancer, but the lives we lead and the lives we provide our dogs can play just as brilliant a role in recovery and long term survival.

Studies show that women who have had breast cancer, and walk thirty minutes a day, six times a week, reduce their risk of recurrence by 50%. That is personal power; that does make a difference. We take food into our bodies three times a day. Some foods promote strong immune systems and healthy biochemistry; others promote inflammation, poor circulation, and provide poor nutrition to our dividing and developing cells, increasing the likelihood of mutations and cancer development. Three times per day, by making simple food choices, we can have a profound effect on our own biology.

Caring for our dogs provides similar opportunities for empowerment. Exercise and good food are within the reach of all of us. On Tuesday of this week, Nicholai and I hit the beach on the Columbia River. It was a temperate morning and the old boy took a few swims in the cold river. I smiled, amazed that we are in our second year of daily enjoyment of the natural world since diagnosis. If I had taken the standard advice about Nicholai's care, we would have faced a long battle with chemo and radiation (no guarantee of success there, either), or the "do nothing" wait and see approach that statistics indicate would have left us without any swims on temperate spring mornings, even last year.

A cancer diagnosis is not hopeless, nor does all power lie in the hands of the great and sometimes wonderful medical industry. We can influence the outcomes for ourselves and our animal friends. And we can make our lives much better along the way.