Empowered Healing. Susanne M. Alexander
goals for maintaining quality of life is a team exploration with a patient, caregiver/family, and medical staff. Empowered Healing guides patients and their loved ones through a systematic fact-based, spirit-guided approach. The choices involved in this approach can potentially lengthen cancer patient’s lives and also help them increase the quality of the time they have, no matter how long it is.
This approach to cancer grew out of the authors’ own experiences with Craig Farnsworth’s cancer diagnosis and his wife’s caregiving (Susanne M. Alexander). Susanne is an experienced writer and journalist. Craig knew from the moment of his tumor diagnosis that his approach was going to be different from the way most people would respond. He was then further inspired by Dr. Bernie Siegel’s description of being an exceptional cancer patient in his book Love, Medicine, and Miracles. Susanne also did her best to be an exceptional caregiver. As a result, Craig lived far longer than expected with excellent quality of life throughout. This book unfolded weeks before Craig’s passing under hospice care.
www.marriagetransformation.com/store_EmpoweredHealing.htm
Foreword – Annaliisa McGlinn, MD,
Radiation Oncologist
As a Radiation Oncologist, most people think that what I do is treat people with high energy x-rays in an attempt to provide a cure or to provide symptom relief for improving quality of life. But what I really do is listen, teach, and try to guide patients into living beyond their cancer. What I love about my job is the human interaction, the opportunity to provide comfort and inspire people.
When my patients meet me, I have two goals: 1) By the end of the clinic visit, they understand their diagnosis and the rationale for the treatment options, including benefits and potential side effects; 2) I’ve opened the door for the patient and families to live beyond the cancer.
After we finish discussing the diagnosis and treatment, I will ask about how they are coping mentally, as well as how their interpersonal relationships have been affected with spouses, kids, and friends. I let patients know that the range of emotions they are experiencing is normal. By talking about their cancer, their body energy is freed up for healing, and their immune system is elevated to fight the cancer, rather than them spending the body’s energy stuffing the emotions inside. I encourage patients to address the elephant in the room and have the tough conversations with their loved ones, tears and all, because this will bring them closer together and provide a sense of relief. Why is this? Because then each person affected by the diagnosis—patient and loved ones—feel a bond and connection rather than isolation while trying to protect the other. Knowing how hard it is to have these conversations across the kitchen table, I often recommend that patients and loved ones take short walks—as long as the patient is physically able.
I recommend patients examine stressful relationships and try to heal them, even if it means agreeing to disagree and go separate ways in peace. Again, this frees up energy for healing, and elevates the immune system.
I recommend patients do something every day that promotes a sense of well-being, which ultimately promotes a sense of inner peace and rest. This is defined differently for each patient. Is it music? Reaching out and speaking with an old friend? Watching birds? Looking at the garden? Playing with the grandkids or kids? This is self-affirming and again stimulates the immune system to help fight the cancer.
I believe in the power of prayer. For those patients that believe in a Higher Power, however defined, I encourage them to pray.
With each new patient, I talk about all of this and more, whether or not our intent is for cure or to treat symptoms to promote quality of life.
During my time as a Radiation Oncologist, I have met many patients who have done better than one would expect. Uniformly, they all made changes in their lives that promoted love, communication, self-affirmation, and affirmation of others. These patients universally were able to use humor, allowed the tears to flow, and did the mental processing required with the diagnosis of cancer.
I’m grateful for what my patients have taught me and the practices that I’ve learned from Dr. Bernie Siegel (Love, Medicine, and Miracles) that I use every day. Empowered Healing is in the spirit of his work, and it will guide patients through claiming their emotions, being empowered in responding to their diagnoses, and helping them and their families strive for quality of life.
AnnaLiisa McGlinn, MD
Dr. McGlinn is the Director of Radiation Oncology at the Yolanda G. Barco Oncology Institute in Meadville Medical Center, Meadville, Pennsylvania. This facility is an integrative cancer treatment center that was founded on the holistic principles that Bernie Siegel, MD, and Barry Bittman, MD, have pioneered for many years.
Note: If you are aware of a cancer-related organization that may wish to use this book as a fundraising tool, please connect them to Marriage Transformation.
The websites are:
www.marriagetransformation.com/store_EmpoweredHealing.htm,
and
www.marriagetransformation.com.
You can also reach Susanne at
or 216-255-9301.
Craig’s blog: www.factbasedspiritguidedpath.blogspot.com
The Context: A FRAMEWORK FOR EMPOWERED HEALING
Once you begin traveling with cancer, whether you are the person with the diagnosis or you are a loved one, the term “quality of life” becomes a part of your everyday world. You may be striving to maintain the quality you had before the diagnosis and treatments began, or you may be creating new definitions of what quality looks like at each stage of the journey. This book lays out the tools we developed and used on our own journey with cancer. As you fully use them, you can be inspired to have a high-quality life, as we had.
Responding to Cancer
In the summer of 2007, Craig had a tumor removed from the left parietal lobe of his brain, the area that controls motor skills. It was subsequently diagnosed as Glioblastoma Multiforme, a highly aggressive form of primary cancer. From the first hour of the news that he had a tumor in his brain, he focused on the facts of his circumstance and refused to “descend into speculation, worry, and anxiety.” Over the subsequent weeks, he began to formulate how he wanted to respond to his diagnosis and entitled it the “fact-based, spirit-guided approach.” He then invited his wife, Susanne, to join with him in her role as caregiver.
It was not until the last period of Craig’s life, in the spring of 2009, that we began to systematically write down our understanding of the components of this approach. We reflected on and reviewed what we had successfully done during Craig’s cancer journey, and we recorded what we learned in the process. We hope that our experience now benefits you. Throughout this book, you will hear Craig’s voice as one responding to a cancer diagnosis and Susanne’s voice as the caregiver. However, we have made efforts to keep our suggestions broad enough to apply across a wide range of cancers, not simply brain cancer as Craig experienced.
Our attitude was that life is a continuous process of personal growth and transformation. Cancer is like any test or difficulty in life—it can be an opportunity to engage in this process. A vital component of the fact-based, spirit-guided approach is that scientific, spiritual, and emotional factors must work in harmony. It is then possible to achieve maximum personal growth, healing, and quality of life. We regard healing as a process that is only partially physical. Much of Craig’s healing involved relationships, his soul, and his emotions. We believe our approach extended Craig’s physical life and definitely improved its quality. We also saw ourselves as empowered advocates for Craig’s well-being, and both of us were fully involved