Suggested Reading from a Doctor with Cancer
Wendy Harpham, MD from Dallas Texas is a physican who was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 1990 .
Since then she has undergone every conceivable issue related to cancer:
*choosing experimental treatment over conventional
*coping with raising small children
* living with cancer-related fatigue
* experiencing seven recurrences
* having to recognize that her old life as a family practice physician was gone forever.
When she was first diagnosed she was committed to educating her patients and she wrote a pamphalet for them about all the things to do when you learn you have cancer. It eventually became a book called Diagnosis: Cancer that was published the month she found out about her first recurrence.
Other books followed. After Cancer: A Guide to your New Life, which provides cancer survivors with questions and issues to address as they move out of treatment and into the “new normal.”
Her next book When a Parent has Cancer tells what she and her husband learned about how to help children and parents cope with the experience. Tucked in the back cover of the book is a children’s book Becky and the Worry Cup written about the experiences of her oldest daughter Rebecca.
Next came The Hope Tree: Kids Talk about Breast Cancer, a book she co-authored with Laura Numeroff to help families talk with their children.
Happiness in a Storm: Facing Illness and Embracing Life as a Healthy Survivor, addresses survivorship from all illnesses and provides practical philosphy and science-based knowledge to get good medical care and find happiness while you are sick.
Her most recent book is Only 10 Seconds to Care: Help and Hope for Busy Clinicians, is aimed at physicans but also extraordinarily helpful to patients.
Her books are available through any bookstore and her website is www.wendyharpham.com
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Trying to Live a Normal Life
A dying process has no fixed time limit. When my husband was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, we were told he might have 6 months to live, but he only lived another 100 days. I’ve known others that lived years beyond what was expected.
Not knowing “how long you have” is hard for the patient and the family. This is a time when some enter a period of what is called “anticipatory grief”.
Anticipatory grief does not substitute or lesson the post-death grief process. It is not just post-death grief pushed ahead in time.
When a family is anticipating a single death, they are also anticipating multiple losses – loss of hope, a future together, levels of functioning, security and invulnerability.
The most common concern for anticipatory grief is that it can result in premature detachment from the dying person, resulting in a feeling of abandonment.
The most difficult challenge for a family during this period is to try and maintain as normal a lifestyle as possible.
Jim’s family has set a good example for us by trying to maintain normalcy. His wife, LeAnn, not only continues her job as a teacher and is involved in the activities of her husband and teenage children and her friends, but she also prepares for and runs marathons. Her latest run was the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon in April.
Jim’s daughter Maddye and son Ford pursue their own interests, hang out with friends and do normal things that teenagers do.
Jim, in addition to chemotherapy treatments and regular trips to M.D.Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, continues his job as an attorney at the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals, writes poetry, is completing a 2nd book, participates in poetry readings, lunches with friends, sees movies and spends time with his wife, his kids and his friends.
It is common that a few people will judge them for trying to live a normal life, but it is an important aspect of weathering this experience because nobody can face death all the time and unless you take time for yourself, for letting out your feelings and taking care of your health, you may well run out of fuel before the process is over.
