Playing the Odds

If Odds are against you

We cancer patients face a world of frightening, difficult-to-understand information and an overwhelming array of confusing therapies and choices. Cancer authorities and survivors agree that information is critical to survival. However, with so little time, and under so much stress, we cancer patients find it nearly impossible to acquire this vital information and rarely have a comprehensive resource that we can rely on to begin a healing journey. 

Here are some examples of narrowing your search:

• Enhance survival odds by learning to access the Physicians Data Query (PDQ) to determine if you are receiving the right treatment.
• Find out the best complementary therapies to use in addition to your primary treatment.
• Learn how the timing of chemotherapy treatment and the timing of breast cancer surgery may effect survival odds.
• Learn about new tests like chemo sensitivity testing to determine to if the chemo you plan to take is effective against your cancer.
• When survival odds are low with conventional therapy, alternatives may be your only hope. Find out the most promising alternative therapies.
• Discover the most realistic and powerful mind/body therapies.
• Explore how prayer and your spiritual beliefs can assist in healing.

Expression that is purely honest.

For those who may not be familiar with the last ten years of C. S. Lewis" life, you should know that most of his life he was a confirmed bachelor, living with his brother, Warnie. At the height of his career as an author and lecturer at Oxford and Cambridge, he met an American, Joy Gresham, a Jewish poet who had converted to Christianity, and was in the process of getting a divorce from her alcoholic and philandering husband.

Joy made a series of visits to England, and she and Lewis developed a deep friendship. She later moved to Oxford and then, unexpectedly, she fell and broke her leg, which, upon examination, proved to be riddled with cancer. She was immediately hospitalized but there seemed to be no hope of recovery. When she became ill, Lewis realized that his love for her was more than friendship and he and Joy were married in the hospital during her illness.

Surprisingly, she rallied and recovered her health for two years before the bone cancer returned and she later died. Lewis was so distressed that he cried out his anger at God and was tempted to regard God as a sadist, treating us like rats in a Skinner box. He examined his rage and its eventual resolution in his book, A Grief Observed. Initially, he was so ashamed of his emotional reaction to Joy's death that he published it under a pen name, C. N. Clerk.   What is clear is that God blessed C. S. Lewis with a very special love and marriage, when he seemed resigned to live without love. His love for Joy deepened his faith and compassion. Like Jacob, he wrestled with God and emerged wounded but blessed.

The Odds of surviving stage 4 colon cancer

The survival rate is often expressed as life expectancy of cancer patients in the next 1 year or five years. For example a five year survival rate of 40% states that out of 100 diagnosed cancer patients for the particular type, 40 people can live for 5 years or longer. It is very difficult to predict an exact survival rate, since the life expectancy of the person is highly circumstantial. A lot depends upon the care and treatment given to the patient as well as his own will power to conquer the disease. Stage 4 cancer is a condition in which cancer is in metastasized state, meaning, it has spread to distant organs. An example from the colon to the liver and lymph nodes. According to Ed Zimney, MD, stage four cancer is no longer a disease that can be officially cured. However, its progress can still be delayed as long as is medically possible. The average five-year survival rate for someone with stage four colon cancer is 8 percent, according to data provided by the American Cancer Society.

Coping with psychological stress of cancer

Emotional and social support can help patients learn to cope with psychological stress. Such support can reduce levels of depression, anxiety, and disease- and treatment-related symptoms among patients. Approaches can include the following:

• Training in relaxation, meditation, or stress management
• Counseling or talk therapy
• Cancer education sessions
• Social support in a group setting
• Medications for depression or anxiety
• Exercise
• The most important support socially and psychologically is to anchor down in a local church. Become actively involved in expression of difficulties, pain etc.. and find a place for spiritual expression.

Stage 4 cancer survival rate all depends on the patient. People should never lose hope and for families of those affected they should continue to encourage the patient and show love to boost the chance of stage 4 cancer survival rate.

Artherholt SB,. Fann JR. (2012). Psychosocial care in cancer. Current Psychiatry Reports; 14(1): 23-29.

Sincerely 

Always in Gods Peace, Strength and Courage

Bo Morris