Public Engagement on Cancer Care Part Three: On Prevention and Quality of Life

Attending and participating in the public deliberation on sustainable funding for cancer care this year was both a pleasure as well as an eye-opening and educational experience for me. I was able to talk to fellow BC residents alongside experts and scientists about relevant issues regarding our current health and cancer care system. This provided me with a unique opportunity to ask specific questions and share my own views, while I also ended up gleaning relevant and up-to-date information about the issues at hand. Finally, as a group, we made a series of recommendations to the provincial government and let politicians and decision-makers know our thoughts and priorities on the matter.

I have previously posted about the event (Public Engagement on Making Cancer Care Funding Fair andSustainable Day One) and have briefly discussed treatment options, costs and research (Big Pharma, Innovation and Cancer Care) but here I would like to focus on some of the other themes and issues that stood out and were discussed in detail, namely, prevention and screening as well as treatment and quality of life. Lastly, I shall wrap up with some final thoughts and impressions on cancer and cancer care.

The best news you will hear within your lifetime is that you are fortunate enough not to have had cancer. Many of us – and we should count ourselves very lucky - will go through life without being diagnosed with this dreadful and debilitating disease; nonetheless, we cannot escape the fact that it will be in our vicinity and surroundings affecting our loved ones, friends, and people we care about. Considering its prevalence, it is best to have more knowledge and information about it, and one of the best things to do would be to raise awareness about prevention and screening.

This comes down to advice we have been hearing again and again from doctors as well as health and wellness experts who alongside parents and teachers continuously preach the importance of healthy eating and healthy lifestyles. 

Unfortunately, we are also prone to roll our eyes, let the information go in one ear and out the other, ignore or disregard the given information or erroneously and dangerously believe that we are automatically immune to it. This is a rather unfortunate trait that we have developed since adolescence and that many of us do not grow out of, the belief that we are invincible and that no harm shall fall upon us no matter how we act or what we do in our lives.

As a teenager, this was partly true for me, at least when it applied to nutrition. No matter what or how much I ate, I would be skinny and not gain any weight. However, alas those days are over as I am nowadays precariously hovering between the overweight and obese category, while weight management has become my thorn in the flesh. What this has shown me is that our bodies do not stay young and that there are certain precautions and safeguards that need to be put in place after a given age.

There are different reasons why it is important to take my health seriously. First off, unlike during my youth, I am not alone nor on my own anymore. At this stage of life, I am responsible for my family, particularly my pre-teen son who depends on me and who needs me to be healthy, now and into the distant future. 

If I were not to take care of myself now, I would indeed shorten my life span by a handful of years, at least to the extent that this issue be in my hands. Yet despite the potential threat of serious and uncaused accidents and illnesses, we do have more control and say in our lives than we generally acknowledge, notice or give ourselves credit for.

The first obstacle to overcome is a general laissez-faire attitude. We need to take active control and engagement in our healthy habits, which includes - but is not limited to - healthy and balanced nutrition alongside moderate forms of exercise. This becomes even more important once you have sailed past the shores of young adulthood and are entering a shifting territory more vulnerable to sickness and disease. As soon as the first signs and symptoms of disease appear, swift action needs to take place to avoid consequences and complications further down the road.

Hence, what can you do to keep cancer at bay? In fact, there are specific suggestions and recommendations. One of them is to reduce your intake of junk food. You do not need to avoid it entirely - and some people may actually do themselves more harm than good by trying to completely cut it out - but you should be aware of it and limit it to a certain extent. 

Those potato chips and candy bars may be tempting but they should be merely a guilty pleasure indulged in now and then without necessarily having to feel guilty about the act. Eating out on a regular basis would also not be recommended but doing so for special and specific occasions or at least reducing it to a maximum of once a week ought to be fine.

If you made the mistake of picking up smoking - whether you caved into peer pressure in your impressionable youth and / or wanted to look cool and fell for its supposed charms - right now is the right time to quit. Smoking is one of the few things that will always do harm even if it is done in moderation and those who claim to be social smokers are only conveniently deluding themselves.  

For instance, if you drink too much alcohol, you need to cut down on your consumption, but smoking with its equally harmful modern form of vaping needs to be completely stopped and eliminated. Smoking is the cause of myriad diseases, and it is most strongly correlated with lung cancer, but on the bright side, there are many ways to quit, while there is a lot of support out there for those who are serious about kicking the habit.

Once you have added a healthy dose of exercise to the mix, then you shall be able to reach and maintain that ideal weight, certainly not without persistent and continuous efforts. It is important again not to overdo any of this, be it in the form of excessive dieting, cutting out sugar, fat or any food groups entirely, nor should your exercising turn into an obsession. Wellness means to be and feel well, and one’s mental health plays an important role in it too, something I will briefly touch upon here but will elaborate further on this blog as well as in my upcoming book.

Finally, when it comes to cancer, we also need to ensure to go for regular check-ups. This is especially important if you have a genetic link to this disease. Regular efforts to screen and check for breast, testicular and prostate cancer can help us stay safe and healthy. We need to keep screening ourselves and need to keep in mind that early detection increases our chances for survival.

That prevention and screening are important to all of us was apparent throughout our discussions at the public engagement, and which is why we chose to allocate funding to these areas to ensure that our residents will never have to experience cancer. This would be a win-win situation as the government can also save a lot of money by not having to treat more patients. Not unlike the environment, we need to take immediate action as cancer is considered the new epidemic of modern times. Our actions undertaken now will save many lives in the future as prevention is the best cure and the key to health and wellness.

The second issue revolved around treatment and quality of life. With current treatment options, such as radiation and chemotherapy, cancer patients generally experience a significant number and amount of adverse side effects. This ranges from complete, albeit temporary, loss of hair to strong nausea, vomiting, continuous malaise and fragility. Considering that the treatment may not even be as effective as planned and predicted and taking into the account that one may gain time but is mostly too sick to enjoy any part of it, quality of life is something that needs to be evaluated and considered on a case to case basis.

How one wants to spend the remainder of one’s life with this debilitating illness is an important question to ask and address in each given situation. In the end, it is the patient who would need to make a difficult choice whether they want to accept a treatment that involves pain and sacrifice or whether they would prefer living out the time allotted to them with adequate levels of quality of life. All this, however, applies and is related to the current treatment options available. The silver lining is that there are and shall be other innovative treatments that would be easier to digest and that are accompanied with less severe side effects.

Whatever path one takes, it is important to maintain a holistic view throughout. The problem with doctors and medicine and to a large extent science itself is that they tend to disregard the spiritual and emotional aspects and spectrum. Doctors tend to focus on dealing with and combating the illness itself but often lose sight of the person attached to the body. But the cancer has become part of the body, and it is essential to take the whole person into account when dealing with this or for that matter any other disease.

Yet currently science has begun to acknowledge the role and importance of emotional and spiritual support, and as a result, more and more patients are given a more balanced and holistic care that would benefit them most under the circumstances. In fact, this can and should involve and be extended to the loved ones around them who also suffer from the consequences and repercussions of dealing with cancer.

Finally, a more psychologically robust self can enhance not only one’s lifespan but improve upon the life quality of the remaining course of the disease. Regardless of the circumstances and the suffering and hardship, it is vital to keep up the flames and rays of hope. It is easier said than done but one should not lose hope even in the face of adversity. This is where spirituality and one’s personal beliefs can best come into focus. A person who not only accepts their circumstances but manages to find meaning and purpose in them will be able to resist the disease much better and longer than those who resign and give up hope. 

We should also keep in mind that death will occur to each of us one way or another and that it is a fate no one will or can escape from. Whether one believes in an afterlife or not, whether one thinks that we will vanish into the void or re-appear in different forms and guises is a very personal issue indeed, and it is not up for debate here. The paths may be many, but the destination shall be the same.

Regardless of what one believes or does not believe in, it can still be imbued and injected with hope into and for the future, and that is the healthiest outlook to maintain while staring directly into the hideous face of this monstrous illness. In the meantime, the best we can do is to work towards preventing and screening for cancer, to raise awareness about it and to contribute in any way we can towards eventually finding a cure for it. I am hopeful that we are on the right path as long as we keep on treading forward.

Different Personality Types and Brain Systems by Helen Fisher

Ever since the inception of science, scientists have been trying hard to classify and fit everything and everyone from plants and animals to humans into distinct categories. For instance, the Greek physician and philosopher Galen based his four different types of personality on a person’s “humor,” which could be classified as either black or yellow bile, as blood, or as phlegm, while each category would be equipped and charged with specific criteria and personality characteristics.

The Big Five personality traits aside, the division of human personality into four distinct elements – earth, water, air and fire - has also been practiced by the field of astrology, yet it was refreshing for me to see that biological anthropologist / evolutionary psychologist Helen Fisher in her analysis broke down humans into four distinct categories based on differences in their brain chemistry.

I learnt about this classification when attending her lecture in Vancouver on attraction and human relationships, a topic that Helen Fisher knows best and most about due to her extensive research in the field. Yet in order to find out who could be matched with whom (keep in mind that Helen Fisher has also been involved in the creation of match dot com and chemistry dot com), it is important to first know where oneself exactly stands on a specific spectrum of personality. 

As she was talking about the different types of brain systems with both their positive and negative aspects and connotations and as she was giving famous real-life examples of each one of them, I could not help but mentally position myself into two distinct groups.

In fact, it turned out that I was correct in my self-analysis as we were given a free test to gauge our very own brain system. Although I am unfortunately not able to make that gift to you, I can at best give you a summary of each of the systems so that you may self-classify yourself along the given spectrum. 

If interested, by all means do opt for the full test that Helen Fisher offers, which would come with relatively detailed explanations and charts; in fact, it is not unlike the astrology charts offered by astrologers except that her account is more embraced, accepted and backed up by science.

As a rule, there are four different brain systems based on individual variations and fluctuations in levels of dopamine, serotonin, testosterone, and estrogen. Although some may immediately assume that men will have higher testosterone levels and that women would thrive on estrogen, this is not necessarily the case. Brain chemistry levels can certainly be triggered and influenced by one’s gender, but there are various other factors that could come into play when dealing with the brain and one’s personality, such as genetic predisposition, upbringing, and culture.

In fact, when I heard the characteristics, I immediately knew that I was not going to fare well in the testosterone department, and indeed, I did not. But overall and in most cases, there would be two predominant traits among each of us, and they would set, define and / or favor a certain personality type.

Now let us look at each level on its own merits and drawbacks. To start off, we have the dopamine type of personality. These are usually explorers; they like to take risks, and they are rather curious. They are the ones who end up making the most amount of money but are at the same time capable of losing the most amount of money as well. This may be due to their impulsive and optimistic nature, but they are generally enthusiastic and generous people. They also tend to generate more ideas. In Helen Fisher’s words, they tend to vote for Democrats in the United States.

Yet dopamine explorers can have the following negative traits. They are easily bored and can become reckless. Their drive can keep them motivated and keep them on their toes, but it can also make them manic and, in some cases, even insincere. If you think, that all this makes it sound like an entrepreneur type of person, look no further than entrepreneur and venture capitalist and co-founder of PayPal Peter Thiel, who was held up as an example of such a type of person alongside journalist, feminist and political activist Gloria Steinem.

Then there are the serotonin builders. They tend to be the pillars of society. They are generally traditional and cautious in their outlook and approach to life. They are often modest, calm, and self-controlled, and they like to plan and schedule ahead. They are certainly not averse to routines, but at the same times they are precise, detail-oriented (they are generally very good with numbers and figures) and persistent. By the looks of it, it sounds like they would make good accountants as well as computer scientists.

Due to their traditional nature, they also tend to be religious as well as dutiful, respectful, and loyal. They are not revolutionaries but like to follow the rules and the established law. Indeed, they respect authority and do not like breaking rules or guidelines. At the same time, they are not fearful and can be stoic when facing dangers, obstacles, and difficulties.

On the negative side, they might end up being close-minded and rigid in their set and pre-established views, and they would also tend to be controlling. Two of the famous examples are current American Vice-President Mike Pence and Queen Elizabeth II. It may seem rather odd to have both of them in the same category, yet at the same time, it seems to make perfect sense.

The next brain chemistry category is the testosterone-driven director. They are analytical and logical, but also ambitious and competitive. They tend to be independent and self-disciplined, but they are also inventive. They are, for better or worse, emotionally contained and can also be skeptical of others. They are the ones, according to Helen Fisher, who would say the following to their spouses: Do I love you? I said, I love you last month, and nothing has changed since then, so why ask me the same question all over again?

Their negative traits reveal themselves in their impatient, exacting and demanding attitude towards others. In fact, when testosterone levels go up, empathy levels tend to decrease as well. This is also why men tend to be less emotional and empathetic compared to women.

But think about it, Helen Fisher told us. Men’s task and job was in fact not to be emotional and caring throughout evolution. Our ancestors would not have been able to kill animals for food had they been overly empathetic towards their prey. However, they also tend to be fair and that is an essential positive character trait they are endowed with. Famous examples include, not too surprisingly, Steve Jobs as well as Hillary Clinton.

Last but not least, there is the estrogen negotiator. They tend to be holistic and engage in what is referred to as web thinking (Helen Fisher stated that she used the term before the advent of the Internet). They are also imaginative and mentally flexible and can tolerate ambiguity.

Moreover, they are intuitive, introspective, nurturing, and empathetic, and they are good at reading faces and body posture. They are emotionally expressive as well as diplomatic and have strong people skills. In fact, they tend to be trusting and seek meaning and harmony in everything they do.

Conversely, they can also be scattered and indecisive. They could harbor negative feelings and ruminate about what you said or did five years ago. They can be hypersensitive (I would not be surprised if most or all Highly Sensitive Persons or empaths would fall into this category) and they tend to overthink things and could also be gullible due to their sensitive and trusting nature.

Famous examples include Oprah Winfrey, who seems to be the embodiment of almost all of the above traits as well as Charles Darwin who astonishingly managed to connect and encompass the whole of humanity and human history with his theory of evolution. In fact, Darwin was also high in dopamine adding the element of curiosity with the drive for exploration.

Finally, Helen Fisher quipped that many say that there has never been a female president in the history of the United States, but this may not be entirely true. There was indeed Bill Clinton with his soft face who scored high on most of what is traditionally designated as feminine traits and characteristics.

There you have the four brain systems by Helen Fisher! Should you take everything at face value? It is grounded in science, but one should still take it all with a proverbial grain of salt. But at the same time, I find it most interesting to combine neuroscience with personality traits.

It may not be perfect as of yet, but there could be more precise and more accurate measurements and predictions in the future, and ones that do not solely rely on self-survey questions but that would combine quantifiable information of brain chemistry alongside genetic codes and signposts.

Does this sound scary? Would we be better off because of it? Hard to say for now, but I would highly recommend ways and attempts of understanding oneself and others better, and this brain system is most interesting and promising in those aspects, and more.

On Heartache and Burnout: A Personal Interview with Holistic Wellness Expert Jennifer Marcenelle

Last Friday I had the pleasure to have a phone interview with Jennifer Marcenelle, a board-certified, holistic, registered nurse with over 30 years of experience in the medical field who is, moreover, an energy medicine practitioner of Gemstone and Diamond Therapy. This personal interview came about through the efforts of Public Relations Manager Arden Izzo, who had first contacted me with background information as well as a brief article on Jennifer’s experience, practice, and initiatives and who then set up and arranged my interview with her.

Jennifer who used to work as a cardiovascular nurse for over 20 years considers emotional stress, heartache and burnout as serious but generally under-reported and unacknowledged sources and causes of illness and disease. Since she viewed and approached stress and burnout through a holistic lens and away from the current standard and traditional practice of Western medicine, I was not only intrigued but very eager to personally speak with her about these matters that are close to my own heart (pun intended).

Our conversation started off with a bit of background information about herself. Thanks to her knowledge, experience, and work ethic, she achieved higher levels of leadership and management positions in the health care industry. However, all of that took a heavy toll on her health and led to a near suicide due to burnout. 

It was at that point when she had a life-changing spiritual experience. She realized that not only was there a driving resistance against change within her, but the main issues in her life could be traced back to problems with “energy” levels. 

In fact, she was energetically damaged by hate and jealousy projections from others as well as by herself. Although she was already practicing alternative medicine, such as acupuncture and Chinese medicine, the problems had been alleviated to a certain degree, but then they plateaued and stagnated and did not advance much further thereafter.

This led her towards another path, one that was further away from corporate America and towards a place that was both physical and spiritual in nature and in which she could receive and later herself provide what is known as energy healing. 

Jennifer told me that one of the main causes for burnout is our relationships, namely the relationship we have with ourselves as well as with others. We often carry around negative energy in the form of thoughts and feelings, but we also absorb the negative energy that is oozing and emitted from and by others. Becoming aware of these emotions and then releasing them is part of the process of realizing what is true and essential to one’s own unique and special way of being.

This is what constitutes wellness, according to her. The problem with Western medicine is that we tend to turn to pills to alleviate the symptoms, but pills are and cannot be wellness. In fact, they tend to make the problems worse as they are not directly treating or dealing with them but rather circumventing and avoiding the real issues and problems while causing many unwanted and potentially damaging side effects.

Symptoms of any kind are indeed a message from our body, and they show us what specific parts of ourselves need to be changed and healed. For instance, in my case, I tend to suffer from higher cholesterol, and I am generally urged by my family physician to take pills, which is her response to any medical issue; nonetheless, we would still need to keep in mind that cholesterol has its own function as a natural protection against inflammation. Just blocking a natural defense system from doing its diligent work and ignoring or drowning the message it is trying to give us would be counterproductive.

It does not mean one should always avoid medication, far from it, but rather one should take it, if, when and only as long as it is necessary; put differently, it should be used only as a temporary measure and at the correct dose. 

One should not overlook other more natural and much more effective means, such as diet, lifestyle, and, most importantly, a reduction of overall stress, all of which would need to be addressed first to effect and bring about healing.

Jennifer further explained that each organ in our body has an energetic counterpart, an aura or a chakra, so-to-speak. In fact, strong emotions have their emotional connection with a physical body part; for instance, anger and jealousy literally burn in one’s inside and cause and contribute to energetic injury, which can eventually lead to burn-out.

We often unconsciously acknowledge this connection when we say that love is “pulling at one’s heart strings.” Indeed, emotional stress and heartache can damage the heart, change its shape or deform it, and in some extreme and dire cases, it can even lead to death. Jennifer personally witnessed this when a mother collapsed and succumbed to a heart attack when visiting her injured son at the hospital. In fact, recent research shows that emotional stress can also alter the brain, which has given insights into post-traumatic stress disorder and why it is so pervasive, prolonged and harmful when left untreated.

What can we do about emotional stress then and how we can protect ourselves from it? The best way to find wellness would be to release and remove the negative energy we carry inside. Unfortunately, we have become less and less adept at doing so. Jennifer suggested that we work with a practitioner to create balance and equilibrium in our aura or in the energetic anatomy. 

In fact, everything in our environment has a given frequency and reacts with energy fields. For instance, herbs that stem from the plant kingdom have their own vibratory rate, which affects healing, but the frequency of plants is relatively small.

On the other hand, the mineral kingdom has much higher crystalline frequency and its healing rate, as a result, would be much higher as well. Practices like diamond or crystal therapy alongside meditation and yoga can help realign vibratory forces. When you meditate with the sound of Ohm, the verbal components of the word can help your body, which is mostly made of water, vibrate, and this can aid healing.

Asked upon her own meditation practice, she told me that she likes to engage in what is known as contemplation or active meditation. For about twenty minutes and twice a day, she would try to focus and connect to the divine to reach a certain form of cleansing from within. She would, however, be discouraged from doing the type of inward meditation I engage in, which is, by all means and purposes, construed as rather passive: a kind of Zen sitting and being aware of feelings that naturally come and arise.

The problem with such passive meditation, in her view, was that it could leave one at the mercy of evil energy or forces out there. She claimed that certain things, certain thoughts and emotions, should be avoided, and that some fears are best left alone or dealt with only with the presence of a licensed practitioner.

This was one of the few instances we disagreed with each other as my approach is to actively seek out what one is afraid of and to face one’s inner demons. There was a noticeable and palpable moment of silence on the other side of the phone when I mentioned those words. 

I myself strongly advocate psychoanalysis as a means of releasing trapped and accumulated negative memories, feelings and experiences so that one can become free and independent from their pernicious influence.

Contrary to avoiding certain thoughts and emotions, I believe that those are the ones that ought to be faced, addressed, and confronted to begin with. Without stepping out of one’s comfort zone and without making unconscious processes conscious - some of which will feel quite uncomfortable - nothing true and lasting could be achieved, and we would be only caught in a vicious cycle.  

Upon my question on what she thought about psychology and psychotherapy, Jennifer responded that she believed one should have no agenda and one should not live by the truth that others propose but rather be guided by one’s own personal truth. 

The problem, she added, is that psychology alongside Western medicine, has its limitations as it is too focused on the mental structure. They work well with the mental body, yet at the expense of all the other bodies that we are made up of, including feelings, intuition as well as spirituality.

There is hope, however. Many in the medical community are changing their views on these issues and have become more open and flexible to alternative medicine and holistic care. In fact, there are various methods and treatments, such as Reiki and general holistic care in many systems and at different hospitals and institutions. This type of acceptance of different views on health care and wellness has also become visible at cancer care facilities that do not merely or solely rely on traditional Western medicine.

In fact, at the public deliberation meetings on cancer funding I attended earlier this year, I was made aware of a local supportive cancer care facility by the name of Inspire Health. At this institution, they support cancer patients by adding holistic practices, such as yoga and meditation as well as a person-based model or outlook that focuses on stress, emotional support, nutrition, and spirituality. In fact, I am planning to visit this place soon, so I shall be able to provide more details about their approach as well as practice.

Why is it that traditional medicine has been so skeptical, narrow-minded and even averse to those changes for such a long time? I asked. The answer, Jennifer responded, goes back to the United States when influential and wealthy people like John D. Rockefeller - in fact, he is considered one of the wealthiest Americans of all time - wished to make additional sums of money from the fountains of the petrochemical industry. 

As a result, they developed the medical model that would actively utilize sources of petroleum, commonly referred to as Big Pharma nowadays. By relying on this limited and often ineffective definition of health and wellness, it helped owners and shareholders grow their own pocketbooks, but left the patients to deal with various medical issues and complications. 

To heal, it is important to go inward and take responsibility for oneself and one’s health, and one needs to realize what parts to address and change in one’s body and mind. This cannot be achieved via pills or medicine but needs to go much deeper and further than that.

Although I entirely agree with Jennifer that healing comes from going inside and releasing accumulated negative energy, our means and approaches seem to be rather different. I am accepting and open-minded of other points of views and practices, but I tend to be skeptical of proposed treatments like diamond therapy. However, Jennifer pointed me towards the book Gemstone Energy Medicine: Healing Body, Mind and Spirit by Michael Katz, which I would have to consult in the near future for more information and details on the topic.

All in all, I very much enjoyed talking with Jennifer over the phone, and I learnt a lot about treatments I had known very little about. In addition, Jennifer is a very pleasant and resourceful person to talk to, and if you are interested to know more about her as well as her services and practices, please feel free to visit her website at Burnbrighttoday.com.