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The Cult of Optimism ... part ???

3/25/2016

8 Comments

 
Picture
Photograph by Andrew Eccles
On January 20, 2016, Prevention magazine ran an article entitled, "What Life is Really Like After Breast Cancer -- Joan Lunden Gets Personal."  It's her story and she's entitled to share her story as much as anyone else.  The very fact that she's a celebrity probably gives her "more" of a right as she commands a greater audience and greater ear than someone who who writes a tiny little blog in the huge arena of the Internet and blogosphere.

Today, the Bend Bulletin newspaper (Bend, Oregon) reprinted the Prevention article.  I didn't see the original article in January as I was in the midst of trying to stabilize my own health in living with metastatic breast cancer.  However, I read the article this morning and I'm appalled.

In my opinion, when someone is a celebrity, they have a certain amount of responsibility to be knowledgeable about the topics their celebrity status platform gives them.  I do believe Joan Lunden is learning what she can about breast cancer in general, but she steps into dangerous waters when she tries to give voice to metastatic breast cancer without being intimately involved in the metastatic community.
PREVENTION MAGAZINE:  You often call yourself a "glass-half-full kind of girl." But certainly this diagnosis must have been an incredible challenge to maintaining that attitude. Was there a point where you asked, "Why me?"

JOAN LUNDEN:  Never. It didn't even occur to me. I've been taken to task on social media for talking about how important it is to have a positive attitude. And it's usually people who have metastatic breast cancer, and they know they're going to die, and you know, "Positive attitude isn't going to cure us."

But a positive attitude will certainly make the time you're here on Earth more palatable and will certainly keep the fight in you to keep fighting to live until maybe we even find a better treatment for you. It will keep that fight stronger. There have been studies that show that patients who have a positive attitude and are optimistic have a better immune system, and they heal better, they recover better.


Do you see the condescension in this observation?  "But a positive attitude will certainly make the time you're here on Earth more palatable and will certainly keep the fight in you to keep fighting to live until maybe we even find a better treatment for you."  

Seriously?  Translated into plain English:  "Smile!!!!  Be positive!!!!  You are dying but you need to remain positive about your life so that you can keep fighting until MAYBE we even find a better treatment for you." 

My friend, Linda, died yesterday.  My friend, Helen, is in her last days.  Sunday is the first anniversary of Michele's death.  I've lost 17 personal friends (real life, not online) in the last three years to metastatic cancer, most of which whom had metastatic breast cancer. 

Paul Kalanithi, MD, wrote here:  " After the diagnosis, I knew that someday I would die, but I didn’t know when. But now I knew it acutely."

There is extreme value in appreciating each day that we have.  However, there is something extremely dismissive for someone to tell a dying person to be positive because that will "keep the fight in you to keep fighting to live." 

Additionally, Lunden goes on to say, "There have been studies that show that patients who have a positive attitude and are optimistic have a better immune system, and they heal better, they recover better." 

Notice some key words there?  " ... they heal better, they recover better." 

Metastatic breast cancer patients do not heal, nor do they recover.  They die. 

Being positive does not expedite better treatments.  Using your celebrity voice to exhort others to invest in meaningful research into metastatic disease is far more meaningful than exhorting dying patients to be positive about their lives, however short those lives may be.

(Oh, and by the way, there are studies that show that having a positive attitude in the face of cancer does absolutely nothing to increase survival chances.)
8 Comments
Kate
3/25/2016 03:43:15 pm

What she really means is having a positive attitude makes it easier for others to be around you.

Reply
Lin
3/26/2016 08:16:45 am

Kate, you are spot on; yet, we are entitled to our feelings and should not have to hide them. And, I truly do not think this is what Joan meant. She's quite clear that we are somehow empowered to "fight" and "win" -- not.

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Kathi link
3/25/2016 04:59:54 pm

You know what puts my attitude right out of joint faster than anything? Someone who thinks that one's attitude has some kind of magical power over disease. What a crock of bat excrement. Vickie, I'm so sorry that you've lost such an unconscionable number of friends. I think you and I both know that their attitude had nothing to do with their deaths. Hugs.

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Beth Gainer link
3/25/2016 09:23:17 pm

This is complete condescending horseshit. Joan Lunden needs sensitivity training. She needs to not talk about topics she knows nothing about.

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Elizabeth J.
3/25/2016 11:22:18 pm

Hey, at least Joan knows we exist. I had a Komen fundraiser tell me one time that "nobody dies of breast cancer anymore." When I told her I had stage 4 cancer and would die from it, she clearly didn't believe me.
Nothing puts me in a bad mood faster than someone telling me to be positive. To paraphrase the old 50s song, "It's my cancer and I'll cry if I want to."

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Nancy's Point link
3/26/2016 08:10:17 am

Hi Vickie,
I didn't see this article in January either... Enough with the condescending, just stay positive advice, Joan Lunden. And btw, I have asked, why me? So I'm not sure what this makes me. Maybe just human? And I'm very sorry about your dear friends. Hugs.

Reply
Denise Paulsen
3/28/2016 06:03:42 am



Cancer survival not linked to a positive attitude, study finds

January 2008, Vol 39, No. 1

Print version: page 14



Some cancer patients seek out support groups and psychotherapy with the notion that improving their emotional states will extend their lives, says University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine psychologist James C. Coyne, PhD.

However, in a study in the journal Cancer, (Vol. 110, No. 11) Coyne and colleagues reported that emotional well-being in no way predicted survival among patients.

"If people want to go to a support group there are lots of advantages to it, such as a sense of belonging, but survival isn't one of them," says Coyne.

In the large-scale study conducted over nine years, Coyne and colleagues used baseline quality-of-life questionnaires to assess the well-being of 1,093 cancer patients. All participants were involved in clinical trials, which ensured uniformity of treatment and ruled out substantial health disparities in the sample. During the study, 646 patients died, and the research team found no relationship between their emotional well-being and cancer progression and death.

Though his findings strongly contradict the notion that a positive attitude is related to survival, the idea of "fighting" cancer is deeply rooted in our culture, says Coyne.

"It's the American way, that you can do it, you can fight it," he adds.

Based on the study results, Coyne believes it's important to not blame cancer patients who don't adopt an aggressively positive spirit.

"We want to recognize there are lots of individual differences in coping with cancer," he says. "People have to do what's comfortable with them, but they have to do it without the burden of thinking they've got to have the right attitude to survive."

-E. Packard

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Lin
3/28/2016 08:57:16 am

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    _I believe we all have a story. This blog records my story and how I've lived with breast cancer both as a primary disease and a terminal disease.  I believe this is all a part of God's story for my life. This blog unapologetically includes all areas of my life: my faith, my family and my advocacy for change in the metastatic breast cancer world.

      

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