Mind and Body

I am now about halfway through a course on mind-body medicine (offered by the hospital). It’s an introduction to a whole range of alternative therapies that can supplement conventional treatments. It is taught by a wonderful oncology nurse (who helped me with my chemo treatments), and she brings in expert guests.

There’s been a focus on learning relaxation techniques including meditation and visualization. The goal of these techniques is to treat stress, to be able to rest and sleep, and to generate positive attitudes that can all encourage healing. We do a relaxation exercise at every class. This was really helpful to me as I prepared for surgery. Not that I was calm before surgery -- but it did help.

We’ve also had sessions on cognitive therapy (learning to overcome irrational beliefs and fears), nutrition and cooking, and we’ll have sessions on yoga, tai chi, and humor. One of the interesting and valuable parts of the class has been to meet more people coping with cancer – but with reoccurrences and multiple types of cancer – and also to meet people with obscure illnesses, ones that make me say “Gosh, I’m so lucky that my illness is breast cancer! We have so many supportive programs and resources, so many organizations and helpful services targeting us.”