Making the Most of Life After Cancer

by Andrew Schorr

 

Many people know that I am a 13-year leukemia survivor.  Happily, the experimental therapy I received as part of a clinical trial worked, and I lead a full life and take no medicine.  Certainly, many people who are stricken with any one of hundreds of types and subtypes of cancer are not so fortunate, but that number is growing.  There are now 12 million cancer survivors in the U.S., and although many of us would like to forget that we ever had cancer, that would be foolish.  As science shows, denial about a previous illness puts our future years at risk.

 

“Cancer Survivorship” is a hot topic today at major cancer centers.  Doctors are finding that survivors have special needs, and require regular checkups with experts.  These specialists understand that the powerful anti-cancer therapies received can create other problems down the road, including heart problems, sleep problems, and second cancers.  Unfortunately, many cancer patients are not made aware of the higher risks they face, and their primary care doctors all too often miss a key warning sign.  What might be a run of the mill infection for their other patients, could be an alarming sign in a cancer survivor and require much more aggressive intervention.

 

It’s in an effort to save the lives of cancer survivors, and preserve high quality of life, that leading centers are establishing formal cancer survivorship programs.  It is here that cancer survivors can have regular checkups with specialists, in the late effects of cancer care, and receive the psychological support as well.  Also, the doctor and the patient in these programs work together to create a “survivorship care plan,” that can be given to the harried primary care doc back home – a plan for what to look out for and how to respond.

 

I am planning to get involved in one of these programs, and if you or a loved one is a cancer survivor – even from years ago – I urge you to look for one too.  The Seattle Cancer Care Alliance has one, as well as the Lance Armstrong Foundation that supports several, along with other major centers.

 

The message is now getting out that people survive cancer.  It is not always, or even often, a death sentence anymore.  Hollywood has finally started depicting that accurately, as in the new Adam Sandler movie, “Funny People.”  That’s where Sandler’s character gets diagnosed with leukemia.  Given only an 8 percent chance that an experimental therapy will work, he makes plans for his demise.  However, in the end, the therapy does work and he is given a second chance at life.

 

I feel like I was given a second chance, and perhaps if you are a cancer survivor you feel that way too.  So now, we have to protect our good health and nip problems early.   A cancer survivorship program can play a key role.  I urge you to look into this, because it could help save your life…again.

 

Wishing you the best of health!

Andrew

 

For more information, please visit www.patientpower.info