Wendy Harpham on Healthy Survivorship

Cancer, Love and Guilt

Lately, my days have been filled with love, laughter and meaningful work. While sailing on unusually calm waters, I'm thinking of my loved ones who are negotiating rough seas. Instead of feeling guilty at my current good fortune, I feel increased gratitude. I must feel joyful to honor them. Click here to read complete post on my new website.

Who knows if John McCain is a Healthy Survivor?

Who determines if John McCain is a Healthy Survivor? Whoever can determine if McCain is (1) getting good care and (2) living as fully as possible.  Click here to read complete post on my new website.

Is John McCain a Healthy Survivor?

McCain's diagnosis released a flood of articles about survivorship in the setting of a poor-prognosis cancer.  Assuming McCain is fulfilling the first criterion of a Healthy Survivor by receiving excellent medical care, is he living fully, knowing the average life expectancy is 15 months?  Click here to read complete post on my new website.

Hope's Role in Healing

How, exactly, does hope help patients heal?  Click here to read complete post on my new website.

Healing Hope

Does a patient's hope matter? Yes, of course. A more interesting question is, "What should a patient hope for?"  Click here to read complete post on my new website. 

Redefining Strength for the Trauma Sufferer

Samira Rajabi talks about what it means to be strong. As a survivor of many brain surgeries for cancer, she first asks, "What if strength lies in being honest, being vulnerable and being ourselves?" Then, she shares insights you might find useful in your pursuit of Healthy Survivorship. Click here to read complete post on my new website. 

Attending: Medicine, Mindfulness and Humanity

A new book on mindful medicine may help you in your pursuit of Healthy Survivorship: Attending: Medicine, Mindfulness and Humanity. Click here to read complete post on my new website. 

A Healthy Survivor's Perspective the News about Breast Implants

My last post drew attention to the media reports of breast implants putting people at increased risk of a rare lymphoma. I'm not suggesting you shouldn't feel anxious, especially if you are considering implants or have implants. Anxiety is natural. My point is to use your anxiety positively. Click here to read complete post on new website.

When Implants Cause Cancer

Journalists often use heartbreaking stories to make a point. Those stories thrill me when they educate and mobilize people to proper action. They worry me when they risk causing undue fear and leading people away from proper action. Click here to read complete post on new website.

Do Positive Thoughts Extend Life?

NYTimes health columnist Jane Brody purposely used the indefinite adjective—“may”—in her conclusion about the benefits of positive thoughts:  "[Positive thoughts] may actually improve health and extend life." {A Positive Outlook May Be Good for Your Health]   Click here to read complete post on new website.

It's easy to get so caught up in an event we forget why we're doing it. I'm breaking my 250-word-limit rule to share the 704-word speech I delivered yesterday at the start of the 5K Dallas Lymphoma Walk. Click here to read complete post on new website.

Walking to Help Others

This blog is designed to help people get good care and live as fully as possible.  Once a year I use it as a soapbox to make a plea:

click here to read full post

ArmorUp for Life

Preventing illness gets plenty of press. The idea of preparing for it?  Not so much. Hernandez-Aldama was a fitness-loving health reporter when...(click here for full post).

What Young People Need to

What are readers supposed to do with the news about colorectal cancers? How can the information be used to foster Healthy Survivorship? Click here to read post.

Helping Your Doctors Make the Diagnosis

How can you help your doctors make the correct diagnoses? Knowing what I know as a physician about the challenges of making diagnoses, I follow some rules as a patient when seeing my physicians. click here to read post. 

Caring About the CARE Act

Do you know about the CARE Act?  Clue: It's not the ACA (affordable care act) Click here to read post

Lessons of Elie Wiesel's "Night"

Elie Wiesel's Night, a harrowing story of survival, offers lessons about Healthy Survivorship. Click here to read.

Should Your Physician Confide If She Just Lost a Patient?

Your physician is running late. She’s composing herself before entering the exam room where you’re waiting. If, understandably, she’s not her usual bubbly self, should she confide that she just lost a patient?

Continue reading on new blog site: click here.

Why Realistic Hopes are Healing Hopes

You could argue that false hope makes patients feel good and stirs the same placebo effect as realistic hope. Those are both healing benefits. Why my insistence that Healthy Survivors nourish realistic hope?

Hope that Works

"...hope, to provide what it can and should, needs to be tied to reality." That's the line that prompted me to share Jeffrey Weiss' article in my last post. What can hope do?  What should hope do?  And why does it need to be tied to reality?

Happy Despite Brain Cancer Diagnosis

Journalist Jeffrey Weiss offers testimony to the benefits of "hopeful acceptance"--accepting a poor prognosis while hoping for the best possible outcome. In "How I'm Happy Despite My Brain Cancer Diagnosis," Weiss shares his personal path to Healthy Survivorship: 

A Risk of Empowering Patients--Part III

Patient empowerment is intended to help patients.  Like any power, it can harm. 

A Risk of Empowering Patients--Part II

Not all patients embrace the idea of patient empowerment. In particular, some patients don't want to be actively involved in their treatment decisions. Others don't want to hear lists of things they should be doing to optimize their outcome. Why?

A Risk of Empowering Patients

In response to Miller's editorial intended to empower patients, a reader said, "the lingering feeling is we are to blame [if the cancer recurs]...it's all our own fault."

Laura Miller's Epiphanies and Regrets while Dealing with Cancer Again--Part II

In my last post I shared two of Miller's epiphanies. Here's more:

Laura Miller's Epiphanies and Regrets While Dealing with Cancer Again - Part I

Former Dallas Mayor Laura Miller wrote a smart and powerful editorial, with hope that "Perhaps some of what I've done (and, unfortunately, haven't done) can help others."

Making the Best Medical Decisions - Part III

Are you a believer or a doubter, when it comes to modern medicine?

Making the Best Medical Decisions -- Part II

To make wise medical decisions, you need to know whether you are a believer in modern medicine or a doubter.

Making the Best Medical Decisions

Making the best medical decision for you is vital to Healthy Survivorship, and not only because doing so optimizes your chance of the best outcome. If you end up with a disappointing treatment result, your prior decisions affect--and may determine--your happiness.

Self-advocacy and Healthy Survivorship

The National Breast Cancer Foundation just published my guest post on self-advocacy, in which I explained how "The first time I heard that term in a medical context it conjured images of clench-fisted activists picketing in front of hospitals, demanding better care. Actually, self-advocacy is simply the act of representing yourself—your views, needs, desires and interests."  

Message to Clinicians about Minor Symptoms

Capping off my posts about the challenges of minor symptoms, here's an excerpt of my essay for clinicians.  

Web-based App Improves Survival--Part II

How can an app improve survival?

Web-based App May Help Improve Survival

What if an app could help improve (1) survival in cancer patients, (2) patients' quality of life and (3) the cost effectiveness of cancer care? 

The Difficulty of Reporting Minor Symptoms--Part III

Recent posts outlined some of the many reasons patients may experience conflict and distress when deciding whether to call about minor symptoms. What's a Healthy Survivor to do? 

The Difficulty of Reporting Minor Symptoms -- Part II

What's challenging about reporting minor symptoms? They're less frightening. Shouldn't they be easier to report?  

Difficulty of Reporting Minor Symptoms

After someone has been through cancer treatment and recovery, a new mild symptom is no big deal, right?  Well, maybe. In the next few posts, we'll explore the difficulty of reporting minor symptoms in long-term survivors (LTS) who want to be Healthy Survivors.

A Purple Card for Papa

In "The Healing Power of a Selfie" I shared an essay by Melanie Di Stante. She also wrote a children's book for families dealing with cancer. 

The Healing Power of a Selfie

Melanie Di Stante shares the power of a selfie to help patients and their caregivers see their own strength, courage and accomplishments. Her essay "Selfie," published in the online magazine, PULSE, describes the experience of making a video for her local Gilda's Club.

The Hope of Doing Something New

Do you want to feel hopeful? If so, check out the Something New (SN) site of Bonnie Pitman.

Skin Cancer Screening and Misguided Headlines

Don't be misled by the splashy headlines about the US Preventive Services Task Force statement that there's not enough evidence to justify annual skin cancer screening by a clinician. Or by the response of the American Cancer Society (ACS), which does not recommend such screening and has in the past recommended against self-screening.