When people who are newly diagnosed with cancer resist taking needed chemotherapy, a common reason is their fear of damaging their immune system and being more vulnerable. If this anxiety remains unchecked, it can interfere with getting good care and/or living as fully as possible.
What's a Healthy Survivor to do?
One approach is to normalize the temporary immunosuppression associated with chemotherapy.
You might be wondering what can possibly be "normal" about hampering your immune system with chemotherapy to get better. As I suggest in Happiness in a Storm, consider non-medical life situations where you choose to be more vulnerable in the short run in order to fix a problem.
Let's say you have an old, leaky roof that needs to be replaced. Roofers will rip out the old roof before laying down the new one, making your house more vulnerable to rain damage in the short run. (This is why the roofers will delay if the weather forecast is for rain.)
If the idea of chemotherapy-induced vulnerability frightens you, try to keep in mind the non-medical situations in which you accept the wisdom of becoming more vulnerable in the short run in order to fix a problem. Normalizing what is frightening can help calm the fear.
Thank you again Dr Wendy. I had some fears when I was first diagnosed and even though I was a nurse, my medical knowledge of NHL and cancer only made me a danger to myself. I delayed treatment and I may have had a better prognosis if I would have started sooner.
Posted by: Jonnie Hickman | November 28, 2010 at 09:09 AM