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Cancer Survivors Search for Quality in Their Lives - 1, 2
Between 2001 and 2004, an average of 700 people have attended the Living Fully conference each year, coming from across the nation and from several foreign countries. In 2003, for example, they came from 25 states and five foreign countries. Roughly half of them are M.D. Anderson patients. This year, because of Hurricane Katrina's widespread devastation, attendance is lower than expected. About 450 of the almost 600 who signed up for the conference have come to this year's site at Houston 's InterContinental Hotel.
Here, they move from ballrooms where they hear keynote speakers like Jack Canfield, author of Chicken Soup for the Survivor's Soul, to smaller rooms for workshops on medical insurance, premature menopause, and Tibetan meditation. Some are clearly still in treatment, wearing chic scarves over their heads. Others, like leukemia survivor John McKemie, are more distant from diagnoses and treatments, but still vigilant about their health.
“We're now seeing cancer as more of a chronic disease,” says Rena Sellin, M.D., a conference speaker and founding medical director of the Life After Cancer program at M.D. Anderson. “There are intervals of remission, when patients go to their internists. These can be interrupted by cancer episodes, when patients return to their oncologists.
“There's a need for all of the health community to learn more about cancer survivorship. Life after cancer is a balancing act, with careful evaluation, constant surveillance and a big dose of common sense.”
After he survived his initial bout with leukemia, Mr. McKemie prayed and promised himself he would help other cancer survivors if he lived. Even after a recurrence of his disease in the late 1990s and a second bone-marrow transplant, this time at M.D. Anderson, he continues to volunteer with the M.D. Anderson Network.
“To volunteer offers me the opportunity to pay back what I've gotten over the years,” he says.
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Fran DiGiacomo, artist, author and ovarian cancer patient who presented "The Art of Life" breakout sessions at the conference, shares her journey and hope with another patient |
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“I do believe you can make something good out of a cancer diagnosis,” says Linda McDonald, who is here from Sarasota , Florida . “Not that having cancer is a good thing.
“But we've all been given a wake-up call. We have to figure out what to do with our lives. After a wake-up call like this – who wants to hit the snooze button?”
At the conference's first lunch, Ms. McDonald is sitting at the long-term survivors' table. A tablemate asks her the usual question: How long has she survived cancer?
“Guess,” says Ms. McDonald, a trim, energetic woman. She grins.
One person guesses 25 years. Someone else says 35.
Ms. McDonald shakes her head.
“Sixty years,” she says.
The long-term survivors express amazement. No one else is that long term. They can't compete. Not yet, anyway.
Ms. McDonald, 63, goes on to explain that she was diagnosed with kidney cancer at the age of 3. Thirty years later, she developed uterine cancer. Thirty years after that, she has now been diagnosed with breast cancer.
“Every 30 years,” someone at the table muses. “You'd better watch out. Another 30 years from now – it might get you.”
-- While at the conference, writer Ruth Pennebaker marked the 10-year anniversary of her own diagnosis with Stage 2 breast cancer.
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