A Cancer Survivor Designs the Cards She Wishes She’d Received From Friends and Family

VIDEO: Watch This Heart-felt Video About A Cancer Survivor Made Greeting Cards That Reflect Reality

Los Angeles–based designer Emily McDowell was diagnosed with Stage 3 Hodgkin’s lymphoma at age 24, enduring nine months of chemo and radiation before going into remission. 

Cancer Survivors – Recovery is Dependent on Avoiding These 6 Common Mistakes

Cancer survivors have gone through a lot of allopathic treatments, many of them involving drug therapy. It is very easy for a cancer survivor to display impaired judgment and have difficulties in making the right decision, due to the increased levels of toxins in one’s tissues as well as the brain.

The important realization a cancer patient should have is that their goal is to reach a new level of health now, not necessary mimicking the old one(that got them in trouble in the first place..).

Realizing health can occur in different stages, that health is a state of balance will help them to get into the right state of mind.

Usually, a disease occur as a way to bring one onto a more balance state. For this new level of health to happen, the cancer survivor must undergo certain changes. While going through these changes, it is important to avoid these mistakes:

Mistakes of cancer survivors

1. Losing Hope

Patients who are fully informed about their medical condition and prospects under alternative care are able to marshal the invaluable and therapeutically potent power hope. One of the most important psycho therapeutic variables, hope is generated by discussing cases of patient with similar cancers and outlining how they have dealt with their tumor and result of treatment; support groups are very valuable for cancer survivors. This is one of the component of my courses: survivors get to hear and interact with others in a similar situation…

A clear benefit to increasing hope and encouraging attitudes of faith and positivism, is that it increase compliance to treatment. The combination of this compliance to a carefully  designed treatment program and the considerable positive impact that enhanced hope can have on the immune system can contribute to a much more favorable outcome.The  physician must always be clear and truthful with patients, but hope never hurt anyone and  no physician has the right to take it away!

2. Stress is a big component of all illnesses, but especially cancer.

Research confirms that high levels of emotional stress increases one’s susceptibility to   illness. Unrelieved, chronic stress begins taxing and eventually weakening, even suppressing,the immune system.

Stress is a pervasive problem among Americans; according to research polls, most men and women feel stressed out at work everyday.

Stress can be defined as a reaction ( to any stimulus or interference) that upsets normal functioning and disturbs mental and physical health.

3.Another mistake cancer survivors make is ignoring the mental-emotional state that also needs balancing during the recovery stage.

Many physicians now believe that treating an individual’s mental and emotional states is as important as treating any cancerous tunnels that maybe a result of such condition.

Preliminary studies of biofeedback, meditation, yoga, guided imaging, and other relaxation techniques suggest the mind can enhance immunity against cancer.

Personal growth is an essential component of successful cancer recovery as the correct supplementation program. One must reflect on who one is and why this disease has come into one’s life.

The definition of a cancer survivor, although often constricted within medical terms as being cancer-free for several years after being diagnosed with the Big C, is actually a relative term that is more defined from the person’s point of view, than anyone else’s.

While there may be a long debate as to When Are You Considered A Cancer Survivor, there are several factors that can actually help us define this term in relation to the one afflicted with the life-threatening disease.

The 38-year-old designer has been cancer-free ever since. But the emotional impact of the experience lingered, inspiring her to design a newly launched series of Empathy Cards—emotionally direct greeting cards that say the things she wanted to hear when she was ill.

She hopes that the Empathy Cards provide “better, more authentic ways to communicate about sickness and suffering” between patients and friends and loved ones suffering from cancer, chronic illness, mental illness, or other hardships. They are by turns earnest and world-weary, and good-humored without false cheer.

Greeting card designer Emily McDowell knows words matter, and that’s why her new line of cards are deliberately and refreshingly honest.

Source: Cancer Survivor Makes Greeting Cards That Reflect ‘Reality’ – YouTube