Spiritual Care Vital in Cancer Battle

The thoughts crept in, swirling around like villainous wraiths in an enveloping darkness, each with arrows pointed directly at her heart. Fears, anxieties, what ifs, devilish things & intent on robbing her of hope, light, faith, life, fight. The battle was on.

As the reality of a cancer diagnosis sinks in, its not just the body, but the mind, emotions and spirit that are engaged in the fight for life. Faith can be shaken when something goes amiss with the scenario and life weve been living. If we cant trust and believe in whats been working up until now, what can we trust? Is anything worth our faith and confidence?

And, unless cared for, both mind and spirit can capitulate to the suggestions rising up in conjunction with this body invader, depressing the immune system and jeopardizing the efficacy of the treatment undertaken to destroy the cancer cells.

A woman may begin to lose all hope and become depressed, beginning a downward emotional spiral and affecting her physical health. She may quit eating or exercising. She may lose all sense of well-being & whats the use & things are out of control. I have no control over my life. Look what Ive done & all the right things & and Ive still gotten cancer & Im going to die anyway. She may think, I trusted in God to take care of me, and look what happened & I cant trust Him either. She may perceive lack of support and community.¹ She may begin anticipating future losses that may or may not be real. She may feel less attractive, desirable, affecting not only her self-esteem but her family dynamics. So, now theres a decline spiritually, mentally, emotionally, physically and nutritionally. Faith is failing, and cancer is winning.

Moreover, she may begin her cancer journey with some emotional and spiritual baggage.² She may need to look back over her life before the diagnosis to see if there was an event or series of events to which she reacted in ways that may have adversely affected her immune system. She cant do anything to change past events, but by examining her past reaction to the event, she can sense immediately whether shes continuing to be affected by that event in a way that is still depressing the immune system. Things like unforgiveness, revenge, negative thinking and words, despair, self-hatred, high stress, unfinished grieving, conflict between actions and belief system, make up this kind of baggage. These need to be identified and then minimized and/or eliminated to enable the immune system to fight the cancer at full capacity.

A cancer diagnosis may be the perfect impetus to take a spiritual inventory with questions like & what gives life meaning & whats my purpose in life & what do I believe in & whats important to me & what do I want people to draw from me & are there things I want and need to change, correct, make right, either in my relationship to God or with others?

In my own life, my husband of 14 years was killed in 1984, leaving me with a 16-acre farm and four little girls to raise, ages 7,9,11 and 13. Additionally, I was driving 84 miles to work and back every day, and I had some pretty high stress in my life. In 1987, at the age of 39, I was diagnosed with an aggressive, Stage 3, estrogen-positive breast cancer. The tumor was three-quarters the size of my breast. It hadnt been palpable in January, but in May, there it was, and it had spread to my lymph nodes. Id been a competitive swimmer for 13 years of my life, always taken care of myself and had a strong, personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ. But, the circumstances I was in had taken a toll before I even realized it. A double mastectomy and six months of chemotherapy followed.

Today, as a 20-year cancer survivor, Im convinced my restored health and ability to work, keep the farm going and raise my daughters was due in part to the surgery and chemotherapy I had, but also to my faith and the spiritual care I received from God through His Word, His Holy Spirit, prayer, church community, family and friends. It certainly showed me:
" where I needed to renew my mind and thinking on some things;
" refuse to believe or give into negative thought patterns like fear, anger or despair;
" strengthen my faith;
" tap into the fullness of Gods resources for me, including His hope, peace, life, ability to battle on my behalf;
" and focus on two monumental truths -- who He said He was and who He said I was.

When I focused on those truths and not just on my circumstances for the day and what I was feeling at a given moment, both of which could fluctuate wildly, I felt stable, strong and well.

Life depends on faith. As the United States National Institute of Health (NIH) has insisted, through its National Human Genome Research Project, we are more than our genes.

God created us mind, body, spirit, and we need to keep all three healthy if our immune system  the protective unit God has given our bodies  is going to function properly and fight disease to full capacity. None can be ignored.

While Western medicine practitioners believed for years that the body, and the interplay between cells, genes, microbes and bacteria were the constitution of our health, some researchers believe that the spirit  and the faith it embraces  does indeed impact health and healing.

In Timeless Healing, Herbert Benson writes, Through my research, I became convinced that beliefs have physical repercussions & that the human spirit is relevant  indeed influential  in the treatment and prevention of illness.

Decades of studies on faith and its importance to the healing process have been concentrated specifically on religious faith  a persons beliefs in God  and have shown results including:
" Significantly lower diastolic blood pressure for people who regularly attend church, pray individually and read the Bible than for those who are less religious.
" Less likelihood of crippling depression during and after hospitalization for physical illness the deeper a persons religious faith.
" A stronger sense of well-being and life satisfaction than their less religious peers for elderly people with a deep, personal (intrinsic) religious faith.
" Significantly better health outcomes for people with strong faith who suffer from physical illness than for less religious people.
" Stronger immune systems for people who attend religious services regularly than their less religious counterparts. People who went to church regularly had significantly lower blood levels of interleukin-6 (IL-6), which rises with unrelieved chronic stress. High levels of IL-6 reflect a weakened immune system, which, in turn, increases the risk of infection, autoimmune disease and certain cancers.
" Longer life -- a growing amount of research shows that religious people are both physically healthier into later life and live longer than their non-religious counterparts. Religious faith appears to protect the elderly from the two major afflictions of later life, cardiovascular disease and cancer. In this regard, religion may be as significant a protective factor as not smoking in terms of survival and longevity.
" Less likelihood of depression from stressful life events for people with strong religious faith, and, if there is, a more likely recovery from depression than those who are less religious.³
" Reduced stress from deeply sincere devotional practices. People enjoy improved mood and were delivered from anguished tension to tranquility. Mood is connected to chemical neurotransmitters in the brain, such as serotonin.

If youve received a cancer diagnosis, make sure you receive spiritual care as well as treatment for your cancer. Youre more than cancer. Youre a whole person, composed of mind, body and spirit. All are affected by any major illness, especially cancer. And, all three, need care if youre to be healthy and whole.

Lyn Thompson is spiritual outreach coordinator for Cancer Treatment Centers of America (CTCA) at Southwestern Regional Medical Center in Tulsa. CTCA combines complementary and alternative therapies for the mind, body and spirit with the latest technology in conventional treatment options for people battling cancer. Lyn coordinates CTCAs spiritual outreach program, Our Journey of Hope®, for the Tulsa facility. She may be reached at 918-286-5235.

¹Camille Wortman, PhD, a noted psychologist, conducted a study of the perceived support available to breast cancer patients. Seventy-two percent of the respondents reported they were treated differently after people knew they had cancer. Of these, 75 percent indicated others misunderstood them, and over 50 percent reported they were avoided or feared. Harold H. Benjamin, PhD, From Victim to Victor, (Dell Publishing, 1987) 76-77.
²In the early 1960s, psychiatrists Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe noticed an unusually high percentage of cancer patients had experienced relatively severe psychological trauma between 6-18 months before diagnosis. Ibid, 24.
³National Institute of Mental Health, Facts About Depression, Internet information: WWW.NIMH.NIH.GOV, April 4, 1998. In 1988, the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that depression visits to physicians between 1985 and 1994 almost doubled from 10.99 million to 20.43 million. The National Institute of Mental Health estimates that approximately 17.6 million Americans suffer depression each year, annually costing the nation up to $44 billion in treatment charges and lost wages.

• Email This Page to a Friend
• Print this Page