Intro-12. THINK POSITIVE

Yes, “think positive” is an old bromide that we often hear but can’t always do. But recent studies in psychology and medicine have revealed that thinking positive can actually improve and maintain your health, while being depressed does the opposite. Although it’s easy to talk about positive thinking, it not always easy to practice such thinking—especially when we’re having a bad day. Here are a few thoughts that I found helped turn on my “positive” switch.
Recently, a local TV station aired a documentary on M. D. Anderson success stories. This particular story involved a middle age woman who raised horses on a Texas ranch. After complaining to a doctor about a pain, it was discovered that she had a tumor on her brain, and the tissue in that tumor was similar to tissue found in lung cancer. There may have been some metastasis involved here. Anyway, she spent some time in MDA under special care. I can’t remember what was the specific type of treatment, but a several years later when this documentary was made, she was still cancer free.
Now for a long time we have heard that lung cancer is one of the most deadly and incurable diseases, and here was a case that defied the statistics. Actually, those were old statistics; the latest ones identify many kinds of cancers that are curable in 80-95 percent of patients, and it keeps getting better.
I was a little unsure if I could believe this, until the doctor narrating the film described his strategy. It seems that about five years ago MDA used a business model of dividing units of service into treatment types. Thus, when you entered, if chemo was the treatment you went to the chemo department, if surgery was the treatment, you went to the surgery department, etc. But they have recently changed the model to dividing by type of cancer. So if you had Lymphoma or Hodgkin’s disease, or a cranial tumor, etc., you went to a department that treated that cancer type. And this was more effective because the treatment now involved a team. An Internal Medicine person, cellular expert, radiologist, and perhaps dietician joined together to make decisions on any one patient. Another part of this model is not to start in the laboratory by looking at the biopsy and then take the solution to the bedside. Rather, start at the bedside, observe how the patient reacts through various trials, and then take that news to the laboratory.
This way of administering medicine has dramatically helped to enlarge the scope of success.
I think that there is something we are trained to do as children to be safe: be careful and think the worst. Then the evil won’t get you. And this is the basis of much fear and anxiety regarding cancer. Similarly, we tend to shudder when the “word” cancer is mentioned; we see an automatic death penalty. This way of thinking is based on a loose foundation. Rather, look at the facts and statistics as your foundation. Look at the devotion of the staff and get excited about being a part of the team that will make you well. It’s difficult, for sure, but if you can do it, it will make life more livable. Think positive!