Good News/Bad News: How to Handle Them All

“Good News/Bad News: How to Handle Them All”

Anyone who has been touched by cancer or other serious illness has probably become an astute consumer of the latest findings about treatments and statistical prognoses.  This can become crazy-making, and produce unnecessary stresses during an already stressful situation. On April 14, 2014, the researchers at Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center announced that their newly created blood test can detect the recurrence of breast cancer non-invasively. The problem has been that most women, after treatment has been concluded, receive standard blood tests and imaging to assess recurrence.  These tests and imaging are usually done at the request of the woman if she complains of new symptoms such as pain, shortness of breath, or aching bones. Unfortunately, these tests and scans can produce false positives, and then the woman can be subjected to painful and stressful tests and biopsies.

This new simple test has a 95% accuracy, can be done during a routine doctor’s visit before symptoms are noted by the patient, and can help monitor a patient’s response to treatment as soon as two weeks after any necessary treatments begin. This means that the patient need not be exposed to unnecessary or incorrect chemotherapy agents.

What great news! Scientific progress is astounding, isn’t it?

But looking behind the good news, we find the bad news: This blood test is needed because one in five----20%----of breast cancer survivors who have undergone five years of therapy experience cancer recurrence within the following ten years. Breast cancer can return at any time, regardless of the stage of the disease at the time of detection. Most of the recurrences are within three to five years after the end of treatment. Some of the risk factors for recurrence include lymph node involvement, tumor size, and the presence of the HER2 gene.

So how do you wait out the months and years without turning yourself into a tense pretzel? According to Dr. Oz and Dr. Roizen, cuddle up!

Oxytocin, that wonderful brain chemical that helps new moms bond with their babes, can help anyone, man and woman. It boosts happiness, fine-tunes communication skills, improves relationships, and handles stress and anxiety. All of these benefit those with serious illnesses, and everyone else out there as well. There is no pill or shot to receive this miracle brain chemical yet, and you don’t have to be a mom or a babe to get its immediate benefits. But there are plenty of do-it-yourself, natural things you can do to receive its benefits, and most of them are just plain enjoyable to begin with:

1-     Have more sex: This most pleasurable activity results in an immediate rush of oxytocin.

2-     Hug someone for at least 20 seconds: Give someone you love to begin with a long, extended embrace so that the pituitary gland is instructed to release more oxytocin.

3-    Get a massage: Who wouldn’t love to get a massage with no good reason for it? One study showed that a 15-minute back massage of the kind they offer at malls got a big boost in their oxytocin levels.

4-    Hold hands with your special person: Go into a silent area, turn off the TV, tell the kids to give you a short break, and disconnect from the cell phone for just 10 minutes. It’s not just the skin-to-skin contact that blasts stress. Just being there, supporting your special person and sharing empathy will do the trick.

5-    Watch a soulful movie: Yes, there is something good about those “chick-flick” movies that the raucous comedies can’t give you. It doesn’t have to be sad; but it should have something that switches on your feelings of empathy.  Go ahead and lose yourself in the story. You’ll get a huge bump of 47% more oxytocin by the time the credits appear.

6-    Sing with a group! Play music with your pals! Listen to relaxing music! Many studies have verified the relaxing potential of these activities by lowering blood pressure, and now we know that they all bump up your oxytocin levels too.

7-    Create “digital oxytocin” by using social media: Don’t avoid meeting with your friends in person, but do reach out to folks you haven’t seen or talked to in a while. Don’t post to one-up your group, but do update your contacts with events that make you feel good.

8-    Do something fun with your special person or friend: You don’t have to climb Mt. Everest. Just going to a zoo, park, museum, a new city or restaurant, all can do the oxytocin trick.

I am so excited by this list that I’m going to end this post and do one of the eight things the good doctors recommend. The news, both good and bad, will always be around. I face all sorts of challenges being a two-type cancer patient. But I can sure make the days less stressful and more joyful by stocking up on good old oxytocin,

(I first published this on the Cancer Hope Network blog)