Where I Keep My Focus While Fighting Cancer

Anger and frustration among cancer fighters may be totally warranted. However, I’ve tried not to get caught up in those feelings. Not too much at least.

I mean come on, my original wedding date was canceled after my bone cancer diagnosis. Then after a year of hardcore chemo, an 18 hour surgery, and multiple recurrences the following year, my wife and I pushed ourselves to try again for a wedding, which turned out to be one of the greatest days of my life. A week later I had my follow up appointment where scans showed more recurrences and doctors told me I had a less than 10% survival rate.

My point is that after all the surgeries, recurrences, a terrifying prognosis, and my career taking a major hit— most people would say I had a right to be pissed off.

Instead, I’ve done my best to focus on what I have power over. For example, constantly harnessing my thoughts and self-talk towards healing. This keeps my mind in a more empowered state, and just feels better.

Also, since thoughts have been shown to affect our immune system, by focusing on positive thoughts, I’m doing everything I can to give myself the best chance possible at being healthy. (I also commit to my daily healing regimens and routines, but managing anxiety and getting my thoughts right is an important piece of the puzzle.)

I’m definitely not perfect. There have been growing pains, breakdowns, and some days I’m just in a bad mood.

The key is to catch myself and make the adjustments as soon as possible. The way I see it, I can spend time and energy “worrying about disease” or I can keep my attention fixed on “working towards wellness”.

If you’re reading this and feeling beaten down by your diagnosis, or whatever doctors or society might be telling you, or if there just seems like no answer in sight… I’ve been there. I spent years operating on blind faith, researching and experimenting for alternative healing regimens after cancer kept returning in spite of treatment and surgeries.

No matter what, I’d suggest to protect your belief and keep an open mind that if you put out all the right energy, and keep learning and adjusting, unexpected solutions just might come out of nowhere; results may change over time…

It’s happened before and it can happen for you. From my experience, it’s much more likely if you keep your focus solution-oriented and your destination set on wellness… One day at a time.