;)
With Cancer, There Is Always Hope
Oct 12, 2008 
Breast cancer survivor Julie K. Silver, MD, celebrates five years of survivorship with her new book for the American Cancer Society, What Helped Get Me Through: Cancer Survivors Share Wisdom and Hope (October 2008). An award-winning author of over a dozen books, including After Cancer Treatment: Heal Faster, Better, Stronger (Johns Hopkins Press), Dr. Silver received the American Cancer Society’s prestigious Lane Adams Quality of Life award in 2006 for her dedication to making survivorship a distinct phase of cancer care. She is an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, and is on the medical staff at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, Massachusetts.
A couple of years ago, I got an email from someone who asked me what she could do to help her sister who had just been diagnosed with breast cancer. I’m both a breast cancer survivor and a physician, so I had a number of suggestions. However, after I sent off my response I wondered what other survivors would have told her. I decided to ask them. In fact, I surveyed several hundred survivors about what helped them the most and wrote about it in my new book published by the American Cancer Society, What Helped Get Me Through: Cancer Survivors Share Wisdom and Hope.
If you or someone you know has cancer, there are thousands of suggestions in this book about what will help. But if you want to help someone right now—if you want to send them a message of hope and buoy their spirits--send them the link to this blog. Here is a tiny sampling from the book of the many wonderful things that cancer survivors wanted others to know about what really helped get them through:
“There is always hope, and that hope is sometimes changing. It means something different for each person in any given situation. When one doctor tells you there is nothing more that can be done, he is merely saying that he has exhausted his expertise and that the next oncologist may have more up his sleeve. Hope may come in the second, third, or fourth opinion, or totally evolve into a different form.”
Suzanne, wife and mother
Diagnosis of colorectal cancer at age 31 in 1998 in Aledo, Texas
“Our friends and family did not ask what they could do to help us. They simply did things, knowing full well we would not ask for anything. They brought meals, picked up our children for events and outings, and many other small actions. It's a good thing they were thinking for us; we sure weren't. We were too focused on the prize of recovery.” Mike, management professional
Diagnosis of rectal cancer at age 37 in 2006 in Rochester, New York
“What I desired most, for which I found it hard to ask, was physical contact with people. Just the mere contact of someone touching my arm, shaking a hand, giving me a hug, I found to be very comforting. And occasionally, someone to cry with.”
Bill, administrator
Diagnosis of prostate cancer at age 62 in 2007 in Jefferson, Wisconsin
“When people found out I had cancer, most assumed it was breast cancer. Not many people, including myself, had heard of pancreatic cancer. When they had, they assumed men were the only ones to get it. I started a beaded necklace. This necklace has a bead for every positive event I have made it to: birthdays, holidays, anniversaries. I even celebrated the one-year anniversary of my surgery as another birthday.”
Cathy, retail district manager
Diagnosis of pancreatic cancer at age 45 in 2007 in Columbus, Ohio.
“My husband showed me just what true love means. He was with me for every doctor's appointment and every chemotherapy treatment. He became my sole motivation for each day. I lived to see his smiling face and to hear his gentle kind words of encouragement after long nights of nausea and pain…His greatest help to me was his daily hug in the morning with this statement: “Hello, Beautiful. Thank you for fighting so hard so that we can all be together again today!”
Dorothy, receptionist
Diagnosis of breast cancer at age 44 in 2005 in Chesapeake, Virginia 
“I could have sat around and felt sorry for myself because my belly looks like a road map, and now I’m a little lopsided because of the surgical procedures. But instead, I got my belly button pierced at the age of forty-two. Why not? I don’t have any feeling in my belly. My hubby thought it was sexy, and my kids thought it was cool. My mother thought I had lost it.”
Kimatha, medical laboratory technician
Diagnosis of kidney cancer at age 42 in 2001 in Edinburgh, Indiana
“Words cannot describe how I feel. When I first received my cancer diagnosis, it seemed that my world would become a much different place. Now I am beginning to feel like my old self again.”
John, retired
Diagnosis of esophageal cancer at age 76 in 2006 in Jamestown, North Carolina
“I'm Hope, Grace, and Mercy walking! I'm literally flying without wings, one day at a time.”
Tracey, radiation oncology information analyst
Diagnosis of breast cancer at age 37 in 2002 in Villa Park, Illinois.
Related:
Book Review: What Helped Get Me Through
At Basil & Spice
