"Relatively low survival rates for lung cancer mean that despite high incidence rates there are fewer patients alive who have been diagnosed with lung cancer relative to the other major cancers". A quote from the Cancer Research UK website, which discusses a new report they commissioned on the importance that lifestyle plays in whether you develop cancer or not. Sobering reading, as ever, although I take cheer from the fact that the long-term survival figures for lung cancer only went up to 2006 and 2008. I hope that for people like myself, those figures have changed as the new targeted drugs have been introduced. Why do I
hope? Because I need the encouragement. I need the belief that lung cancer is not just a one-way ticket to the Big Sleep. I need the role models, the people out there, still alive. The people who still have the occasional tipple or iced bun, that say "This is how I will live
my life, how I will fight the demon inside me". My lead oncologist is a glass-half-empty person in her assessments, but I guess that you would be, wouldn't you, if you had to go to work every day doing what she does. But...
...Attending the Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation's advocate's conference in Manchester recently I met and saw numerous examples of people still here, still carrying on the good fight. To quote the movie "The Road": Carrying the Flame. But what makes some people live, some die? Is it luck, determination? In my own case I see it more as good luck and timing, tempered with a stupid inability to realise the seriousness of the situation. I plod along from day to day, trying not to think about the bigger picture. When things change in my health I see it/them as the next in a row of challenges to face, to do my best at dealing with and hopefully beat. But if it doesn't work out like that, let's take it as it comes. All you can do is to do your best.
 |
| Another day, another Wainwright, something to be thankful for. |
Recently I've been reading a book that my father bought me, entitled "Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why" by Laurence Gonzales. A catchy title maybe not, but an interesting read as it seeks to rationalise why people live in survival situations and why, to put it simply, others don't. Analysing anything from fighter pilots crashing to mountaineers making the wrong decision, it seeks to outline the mental states which people can utilise to survive when the brown stuff hits the fan. Over the next few blogs I'll try to distill some of it down into readable chunks, but for now here's the concluding paragraph from a list of twelve key factors which have been shown to help survivors, which I felt was pertinent food for thought:
12.
Never Give Up (Let Nothing Break Your Spirit)
Survivors are not easily frustrated. They are not discouraged by setbacks. They accept that the environment (or their business climate or their health) is constantly changing. They pick themselves up and start the entire process over again, breaking it down into manageable bits. Survivors always have a clear reason for going on. They keep their spirits up by developing an alternate world made up of rich memories to which they can escape. They mine their memory for whatever can keep them occupied. They come to embrace the world in which they find themselves and see opportunity in adversity. In the aftermath, survivors learn from and are grateful for the experiences they've had.
 |
| Rich memories. A place that I return to when the need arises... |
 |
| Wet AND dirty - perfect! Purdey clocks up another Ennerdale peak |
I would never want to be grateful for having cancer or some of the experiences I've had, but as I mentioned in my last blog you do get to see people at their best and worst – and maybe
that is an experience worth experiencing...
