Being Realistic

Not the most catchy title, but, I hope, if you read on, you’ll at least find it an accurate indication of what follows.

Just a bit of context.  I, like Sir Chris Hoy, have stage 4 prostate cancer but, unlike him, the prediction is that I have only a few months to live, not a few years.  Never before have I been able to claim I was ahead of Sir Chris!  In fact, I’m ahead of him twice; he is only 48 and I am 87.  By the way, apparently he is still riding his bicycle.  I’m thinking of putting mine outside on a cycle rack with a note on it saying, ‘I’m looking for a new home, please take me.’

All the advice about having cancer can be summed up by 1) eat healthily, 2) keep active/exercise and 3) have a positive mindset.  For many people the most  puzzling of these is number three.  Typical advice sounds like this (the italics are mine):

Take care to enjoy everything.

Live every moment as if it is your last.

With the proper attitude, anything is possible.

Once you master your mind, you’ll make  yourself not only healthier but happier as well.

Notice how extreme all these slogans are; everything, every moment, anything. Is it really feasible to enjoy everything?  Being in hospital with lights on all night and people groaning/coughing?  Doing household chores, emptying the rubbish, loading the dishwasher?  It’s akin to people who advocate positive thinking which I’ve always found the equivalent of inviting people to wear rose-coloured spectacles.  If you imagine a continuum with negative thinking at one end and positive thinking at the other.  The middle of the continuum is not negative, not positive; it’s neutral.  My aim is not to drop below this point on the continuum and, preferably, to enjoy being on the right of it i.e. in the positive half of the continuum, though not necessarily to go so far as to don rose-coloured spectacles.

To my mind this is realistic.

Many people find it difficult to accept that they can choose how they feel. Throughout life we all experience a whole gamut of emotions; cheerful, sad, happy, angry, frustrated, worried, bored and so on.  Some feelings are nice to have and ‘productive’ in the sense that they spur us on and help us to achieve more.  And some feelings are unpleasant to experience and ‘unproductive’ because they drag us down and prevent us from performing as well as we otherwise would.  Certainly being told you only have months to live is an unwelcome challenge and you could easily succumb to despair.

The challenge is to learn how to prevent (not merely suppress) unproductive feelings that hinder our performance and the key to doing this is to work out what thoughts heralded the feeling.  Thoughts always precede feelings, if only by split seconds, and we can all learn to modify thoughts so that harmful, unproductive feelings are nipped in the bud.  Catch it, check it, change it.

When I succumb to an ‘unproductive’ feeling, I find it useful to backtrack and identify what I was thinking immediately before the onset of the feeling.  When I do this I discover that my thoughts tended to be exaggerated and unrealistic.  The news, ‘you only have a few months to live’ stays the same but the thoughts I have about it can range between, ‘That’s it then, the end is nigh.’ ‘Only months?  But I’ve got so much to do.’ ‘Hmm, this will be interesting.’ 

The whole point is that you can choose what you think and therefore how you feel.

Finally here are some practical things I have found it useful to do:

Keep busy with projects and choose not to think about cancer all the time.

When appropriate, talk openly about dying – normalise it.  We all die after all.  What could be more normal?

See friends and have lots of laughs.

Meditate.

Smile/laugh at yourself in a mirror.

Get lots of fresh air/exercise.

Be practical and get organised.  For example, check that your will is up to date, write a letter of wishes, sort out your files, throw things away that are out of date to save other people having to do it.

If you haven’t written your life story, at least leave some notes that children/grandchildren might find interesting.  Or get them to interview you about your life.

The choice, as ever, is yours!