At 80, She's Alive with Hope

BEVERLY O shouldn't be alive. The mother of four and former teacher-administrator was diagnosed with renal cell carcinoma -- cancer of the kidney -- in 1969, back when the word cancer was seldom discussed above a whisper and options for treatment were few.
Over the years, the cancer has continued to spread to a point where now she hardly bothers to keep the list current of where new tumors have grown or their size. But here she is, 80 years old and still living in the small, comfortable home that she and her husband settled in not long after their marriage in 1949.
What cancer has taken from her, it has taken by force. What she has retained -- her love of life, her faith, her belief in another tomorrow -- are what she says has kept her alive for the past 37 years. Above all, she has had hope.
Hope, she says -- that indefinable, incalculable, inexplicable belief that she will survive -- has held her world together when it should have shattered a hundred times over. Statistics and research don't bear her out. Dozens of studies have shown that hope and determination, while key in defining the quality of our lives and deaths, have no significant impact on the quantity of our days.
But Beverly O and statistics have never been in sync. When her children were in school – Beverley continued her hectic schedule, volunteering, working with the children's after-school activities, serving as a host to her husband's business gatherings. But in 1969, she grew worried about a growing fatigue that no amount of rest or home remedies seemed to ease.
Her diagnosed "bored housewife syndrome." Beverley hardly thought she met the definition, but she pushed herself harder, adding volunteer second-grade reading teacher to her list of activities. But it soon became apparent the diagnosis was not only insulting, it was wrong. After a trip to the emergency room, she was diagnosed with a tumor the size of a grapefruit on her kidney. Soon the tumor, along with the kidney, was removed.
Back at home in early November, she had not yet recovered from the surgery when her husband died of what they later learned was carbon monoxide poisoning from a malfunctioning furnace in the their home. She had little time to grieve for him or ponder how close they all had come to dying. She was now a widow with four children in private schools, and it was up to her to support the family. Her cancer diagnosis was pushed aside.
"I wasn't going to die," she says. "I was going to rear my four children. That's what I decided, and that's what was going to happen." Hope alone, she says, can't cure cancer, but it's difficult to go through the ordeal without it. "It's an incredible motivating force.” People hope for changes with time and circumstance.
At first, they may hope for a full recovery, and some get that. For those who don't, the hope may change to the desire that the quality of their remaining days be pain-free, or that they can accomplish a goal in the time they have left. You can listen to more on how to maintain long lasting health by downloading a free audio on www.wallacewattleshomestudy.com
And lastly, they may hope for a peaceful death.
Patients and the people who love them walk a fine line between having unrealistic hope and not having enough. Those who keep hoping for a cure when there is none to be had may miss out on other aspects of their lives. If they are so focused, Stauffer says, on an impossible recovery, they don't take that trip they've always wanted to, or reconnect with their family, or reflect on their lives.
Loved ones may try to impose an unreasonable optimism on the person with cancer, refusing to let the person talk about fears or worries.
If hope and optimism were enough, disease would be a thing of the past. Having hope can improve the quality of life. Beverley who retired in 1990 after 19 years as a teacher and assistant principal of her local High School, not only has lost a kidney to cancer; the disease also took one lung and half of the other. She has tumors on her pancreas, her thyroid, her neck and jaw. Tests have shown the cancer has moved from the soft tissues and into the bone.
"I always have a plan and if it doesn't work, I ask God for a new one. It's one day at a time. That's all."
There are many ways to fight cancer, and they don’t all involve surgery or radiation. To learn alternative methods of healing yourself for long-lasting life, treat yourself to a FREE audio download by visiting www.wallacewattleshomestudy.com