New Book: "Cancer - The Journey from Diagnosis to Empowerment"

Good day and welcome to Medicine Health with Dr. Paul Anderson. That's me, I'm Dr. Paul. And today I've got a little bit different background. I'm at some meetings and I had to sneak away to a quiet place so I could record today's radio show, podcast, and Facebook Live all in one. But this week and then next week, what we're going to do is talk about the new book that I have coming out. Which officially comes out on October 6th. And I haven't talked a lot about this book because we've been kind of furiously in the workup to getting all of the publication work done and the pre-pub information taken care of. And there's, you know, if you've ever written a book, you know, there's a million and a half things involved in all that. And a lot of times, depending on who your publisher is, the, you know, the author may be more or less involved, but I've been— thankfully they have very, very good people and I'm not in charge of a lot of the things that are going on with getting it out in publication to the public. So the first thing is the publisher is Lioncrest Publishing, and they publish some— a number of other books, but some kind of bestsellers that you've probably seen around. And the title is actually in the world of oncology or cancer, and the title is Simply Cancer, and the subtitle is The Journey from Diagnosis to Empowerment. And so I thought I would talk today about what prompted me to write this particular book. Many of you know, or if you don't, that Dr. Mark Stengler and I wrote a book together called Outside the Box Cancer Therapies, and Outside the Box Cancer Therapies has done Very well, as far as, you know, a lot of people have gotten the book, whether on an electronic version or paper version. It's in a number of different languages and multiple countries around the world. And the point and the purpose of Outside the Box Cancer Therapies that Dr. Stengler and I wrote was really the— What we're going to come today to call the external cancer journey or the physical journey of the body. And Outside the Box Cancer Therapies is all about what other things are available in the world, and we try and help people to stratify and, you know, prioritize care for the physical part of that journey. And so that book has been out going on 2 and a half, 3 years now. Well, in the intervening time, one of the things that we wrote about in the book, but we really didn't have the space to do a lot about this particular topic, was what we're going to talk about today and this new book, which is the internal journey around cancer and how it affects you and your loved ones, those around you, whether they're family or friends, et cetera. And so it's one of those things where it's not a topic that everybody wants to talk about all the time because Cancer is one of these real ominous things that, you know, can befall somebody or a loved one. But the reality is that somewhere around 1 in 3 people, or maybe a little more, will be touched by cancer personally, which means that pretty much everybody listening is either going to deal with cancer themselves or with cancer in a loved one. And so the purpose of the new book, which again, the name is Cancer: The Journey from Diagnosis to Empowerment. The purpose of the new book is really to take a step after Outside the Box and the physical journey and go to the internal journey of cancer diagnosis and how that affects you and how that can affect your health. So when we're thinking about the internal journey, if you think about it, One of the points that I'll make in the book is that with very few exceptions, probably if there are even any, nobody really wants to get a cancer diagnosis. That's just the thing that, you know, we're all not looking for. Some people, you know, very much dreading, especially if you've, you know, helped somebody through cancer, had a loved one deal with cancer, maybe pass away, et cetera. So cancer is the kind of diagnosis that is very, very difficult. The reason that I wrote this book was when we got done with Outside the Box and I was looking at it, I thought, well, we wrote about the, you know, the mental-emotional journey to some degree, but really there's a whole, you know, a whole bunch of information that's probably going to be helpful for people in regard to the way that they deal with it for themselves or their loved one. And so what's the What's the overarching idea behind the book? Well, what I wanted to do was to do as good a job as I possibly could distilling down all of the decades of experience I've had dealing with cancer patients and families of cancer patients, etc., and looking at comparing and contrasting better and, and worse ways of sort of letting that affect you. And the first thing that I really want to be clear about is this is very, very difficult when you get this diagnosis or a family member does. So I don't think anyone in their right mind would be telling you, well, you know, you should just be happy about it, or you should not worry about it, or, or, you know, it's no big deal. That's kind of dumb, really. What you need to think about with respect to the diagnosis, though, is After the shock of the diagnosis is there and we realize we don't want this diagnosis, but it's here, whether it's you or your loved one. Now what you have to process is, does it make a difference in the way I deal with this new information in my life? And what I would posit to you and what I put out in the book is everyone has their own You know, right over their body and over their mind and how they deal with things. But from what I have seen and dealt with one-on-one with people and patients and families is the better you come to a healthier way of handling that diagnosis, the better your other healthcare will go, the better your body will work, etc. And I don't say this just based on, you know, theoretical information, although there's quite a lot of it out there. I say this based on watching and looking at people go through the process. And you can, you know, once we get past, as I said, that idea that, you know, cancer is this huge thing, nobody wants it, I think we're pretty clear on that. But once you realize you don't have a choice anymore over that, and it's part of your life, then you have to go through if you want to. Now, if you don't want to, as I say, you're probably not going to read the book. But if you're reading the book for you or a family member, loved one, etc., what you probably want to do is find a way to, as the subtitle says, go from this diagnosis that nobody really wants to a place of mental and emotional empowerment. And I think that that's the important part about it is you all have the choice to not do this. And, you know, I say repeatedly in the book, it's Not written for people who don't want to do that. But from what I have seen over and over and over again, the ability to deal with this horrible diagnosis and move to a place where you're an empowered patient or an empowered family member, loved one, support person, etc., engenders a lot better healing. quality of life, and I would say probably even length of life, but certainly quality of life in the process. And so the next thing, you know, after we kinda get through that basic idea is, well, what if it's not me, but it's, you know, my brother or sister or my spouse, my partner, friends, someone that I love and care about, or somebody that, you know, maybe you're not as close to, but you work around them and you're with them quite a bit. Is that a process that goes on as well? And how does that turn out? Well, it turns out that you as a support person— so we'll lump all of that together, whether you are the, you know, the spouse or the partner or the loved one or maybe a coworker or somebody like that— Your impact on the person who has cancer is incredibly powerful, and that power can be either very positive or very negative. And so we have a whole chapter on friends and family and how to deal with the different, you know, layers and levels that go on. So I think that what I'd like to do is talk about cancer, the journey from diagnosis to empowerment. So the idea there is it's a journey like any other thing. One day you You don't know that you have cancer and the next day, you know, your doctor tells you, you've got cancer and here's what's going to be happening. And you can get extremely obviously overwhelmed. You know, we always tell people to bring people with them so they can take notes and hear and listen, you know, because you're gonna, you know, your head's gonna start swimming. And the same thing if it's, you know, someone you love, you're going to start, you know, your brain goes in a million different directions. So The idea behind the book is to give some structure to not the fact that this is just a disturbing thing that happens, but once you have that diagnosis, whichever side of the coin you're on, what can you do to first understand what's going on and your mental, emotional, or mental, emotional, and spiritual part of you? What do you do with that? And how can you guide yourself or Get the right kind of help to be guided in a direction so you understand the process, where your brain's going to derail and try and sabotage you, and how do you get to the place where you're actually empowered. Now, empowerment is one of those things that, you know, it seems— it can seem kind of buzzwordy. That's not really a word, but you get the point. You know, it's sort of a a word people throw around, you know, we want you to be empowered and all that. And there's certainly nothing wrong at all with the concept of being empowered. But in the context of this book, the reason I chose that as a descriptor for the end of the story to, you know, work on ourselves is not that it's really a destination, but it's a place to be. So if you think about your first exposure to a bad bad news, you can have disbelief, you can have anger, you can have confusion, you can become very negative and think, you know, well, you know, woe is me, and this is a really bad thing. And it is. That's a place to exist and a place to live. You can also work through those things and understand what's going on, either for yourself or your loved ones with their cancer process. And you can become empowered, which is a different place to be in, a different place to exist. And the important part about that is, it's not static. It's not like you get there and, you know, the gates of heaven open and, you know, the angels sing and all this stuff. It's that you are now existing in a place where you are not constantly under the pressure of being in disbelief or anger or confusion or extreme negativity. You still have the same diagnosis. You're just existing in a place where you have power from within to deal with what's going on. And so, as I said earlier, why would that be so important? Well, one of the things that prompted me to write the book were looking back, and when Dr. Stengler and I wrote the book Outside the Box Cancer Therapies, we did a lot of looking back over our, you know, roughly 50 combined years of practice, and now, you know, a bit more. So when I was looking back, one of the things I looked at was Beyond the medical things and the outside-the-box things for cancer therapy and all that for the external or the physical sort of process, did it make a difference what my patients went through as far as becoming either to this place of empowerment and dealing with it anew every day from a point of empowerment versus staying angry or staying confused or staying in negativity, etc.? Did it make a difference for them? And what I can say unequivocally over time is watching people go through this, that it did make a difference. It made a difference, certainly 100% in their quality of life. It made a difference in their interactions with others. And in some cases, I believe it actually also made a difference in the length of their life with cancer. Now, you never know with cancer as far as length of life goes, but One thing that almost every patient will agree with is, since we can't quantify length of life, and none of us can really, even if you don't have cancer, you don't know how long you're going to be here. But what we can quantify is what do we want out of our life? We want quality of life. That is our biggest goal. And if you can move as yourself, the cancer patient, or the loved one or caregiver, to a place where you still have a difficult diagnosis, you have unknowns, you have a lot of potential negatives, but you can deal with it every day from a place of being empowered. It actually improves your quality of life and you, you can even affect people around you in a positive manner. Very, very important, as I saw lived out in the lives of patients every day. So that was the point behind writing the book, was to try and break that down. Now I want to go through just the, you know, the list of chapters, and I've had people ask, well, where is the book going to be available? The book will be available through, you know, all the online resources that are available— Amazon, Barnes Noble, Powell's Books Online, any online outlet will have it. When it comes out, it will have a Kindle version and Amazon will have a softcover version that's available. And then through drabooks.com, it's just drabooks.com, we'll actually have some hardcovers available there as well. The hardcovers are sort of a special edition because the way books are done now, especially through, you know, through being sent out by an online seller, most of those are going to be either in Kindle version or as a softcover. So drabooks.com will have the special edition hardcover if you want that. And we'll have more and more information coming out. Like I said, we've got a few weeks till the launch, and part of this is just part of getting the word out and getting the information out there. But the first chapter I decided to write, and I do have to say Lion Crest Publishers have this excellent, excellent editorial help. I had a lot of editorial help actually, as you might imagine. So I had some from within the publisher, some private editorial help to help me out. But among all that, the first chapter is about how the diagnosis, receiving a diagnosis of cancer is life-changing. And it's literally the working title of the book was Cancer, Now What? And that's not a bad title, but I think the description of what we're going for in the book of the journey from Diagnosis to Empowerment, a little more descriptive. So, but Cancer, Now What? is the idea that how do you deal with this shock? First chapter is all about that. And it honors the fact that everybody gets this shock in different ways and it affects us based on our, you know, our mental, emotional constitution and, you know, how we normally take good and bad news. I think that's an important thing to say. And the other thing, as I said a few times before, is A lot of the importance of this is it's, it's about you and how you want to do this. And so I have literally had patients, thankfully less than the other group, who have gone through and have decided, I don't care about being empowered. I'm mad. I'm angry. I don't like that I have cancer, and I'm going to stay in this angry upset, negative place. And that's their decision. And I want to be really clear that this is not about, you know, what anyone else wants. It's about how you want to do it. The point that I'm making beyond that being your decision, though, is it's normal for everyone to go through that step of either shock or disbelief, etc. And so we get into that in the first chapter, just to, to be very clear that this is not some Pollyanna thing where everybody who gets a diagnosis of cancer or your friend loved one gets a diagnosis of cancer and you should think, oh, well, you know, no big deal. Yeah, it's a big deal. It's what you do with that big deal. And so you need to start from a place of knowing that everybody has that. So chapter 2 moves into what kind of emotions are the most common when we first get this diagnosis. So the second chapter is about, you know, I have cancer, I feel lost, angry, and confused. What do I do? And this again is just honoring that these are normal thoughts. Every rational person would have this diagnosed with anything heavy, and certainly cancer. And if it's your loved one, same thing, you go through the same process. But it tries to break down why, why is that our first sort of go-to in our mind? And how, because this is about a journey from the diagnostic part to Being empowered as a patient. How can I make sense of that without suppressing it? So one of the things that you really don't want to do with regard to anything really that you can avoid in healthcare, but certainly with mental-emotional things, is to suppress it. Now sometimes you have to. So suppression is instead of dealing with and You know, eradicating a disease or dealing with a feeling and an emotion or whatever, you do something to put a lid on it. So sometimes for safety and even, you know, life and death situations, you have to suppress something short-term. For example, if you're having an allergic anaphylactic reaction, you have to suppress the chemistry going on in your body that's creating that or you will die, right? So you don't want to promote that particular process. So there are times when you have to suppress Things short-term. But let's say it's like an allergic reaction. You can then do things so that you don't have the next allergic reaction, or you have a lower amount. That's a non-suppressive treatment. Well, the same thing if you're upset, or you're shocked by a diagnosis, or you're angry. You can suppress it. You can take drugs to suppress the way that you feel. You can use other substances to suppress the way that you feel. And yes, if somebody is going to, you know, have a very big mental-emotional breakdown or potentially commit suicide or do other things, sometimes you have to suppress things. But just like with an allergic reaction, the long-term solution is not normally in suppression. Now I tell stories in the book about 2 different patients, and these of course are not identified as individuals. They're their examples from practice, so you can't figure out who they might have been. But we have this sort of two-ended spectrum where we have one person who has decided they understand that they're angry and that they don't want the diagnosis. And there's a lot of negative and they're not moving. They're not going anywhere outside that diagnosis and they're going to hold on to their anger. And then the other person starts out the same way but decides You know, I am in charge of my body. I'm in charge of my mind and how I think. I'm going to take— I'm going to go from this horrible place I'm in to a place where I am in charge of all these feelings. And so that's a big part of it. So in Chapter 2, we break that down and get into where do these feelings come from? They're legitimate. How do we start to deal with them? Chapter 3, then Is the counterpoint, which is, how am I supposed to feel and think? I have this cancer diagnosis. And the idea behind that is not so much to tell you how to feel and think. It is to, again, guide you through the background information of, yes, these are bad things in the diagnosis. It's normal to feel a lot of negative emotions around it. But here's the trajectory that we can go through to get a realistic but a more enlightened and empowered view of these feelings. Doesn't make them any less, you know, negative or painful to have. And I think that's an important thing to remember is, you know, this is about being realistic, but it's about realistically getting you in control of the situation instead of not. Chapter 4 then is actually what is the process. So you break this down and tell me, okay, I've accepted the fact this is a horrible diagnosis that comes with a lot of negativity. I've accepted the fact that I am in charge, even though I feel like I don't want this diagnosis. I don't want to be in charge, but I, you know, I am because it's my mind, my body, and all that. What kind of process can you break down so I can start on this journey? And by this point, if somebody's really, you know, if they want to be like the one patient I discussed, you know, who stayed in the negativity and things, that's your choice. That is what you can do. But the book isn't really for you because it's easy, you know, to just stay there. But if you're trying to fight your way through this really, you know, life-changing, horrible diagnosis and get to a place where it's— you're in the empowered member with the diagnosis, you've got some steps and some work to do. So we try and break that down in the 4th chapter. Now, in the 5th chapter, I try and get into the individuality and the commonality of this process. And so the 5th chapter is, you know, what's unique to me and then what's common with everybody with the diagnosis. The reason I put this in is, while there are common steps that the person goes through in dealing with the diagnosis and dealing with the shock of the diagnosis and all that, we all have our own individual way of processing it. So if you've ever had the experience of, you know, having a big shock and, you know, maybe a loved one passed away or something extremely shocking and negative, You know that, you know, you may grieve in one way and your brother or sister might grieve completely differently. And we all have sort of a different, you know, might have a thread going through that's the same, but we all do it our own way. And that's normal. That's completely normal. In fact, we all should do it our own way because we all have different mental and emotional processing capabilities and different ways of looking at things and dealing with them. The important part, try and bring out in that chapter is, while there's commonality in the experience to the macro, the big degree, you have to honor the fact that you have different steps to go through. So parts may be faster for you and slower for other people. The point of the discussion, the point of getting into that, is that the overall is about you going through it. So yes, we try and give you a roadmap, try and point out things. But the most important thing is, is that if you need less time in an area but more time in another, you take that time and you work through that. Because one thing that these very disrupting, disturbing, you know, bits of information that come in our life do is they point out the areas that maybe we've either not been challenged in before, or the areas where we've maybe been challenged but not done a great job processing. And this is the way, you know, that we sort of Go back through that. And the other thing that you notice with people we get into in this chapter is that there might be cycles. So they may process through a few stages, seem to be doing well, and bam, something hits them and they're back to stage 1. And that's okay too, because it is a process. It's something we do, you know, while we are here. Now, another thing that chapter 6, moving on, is about is something that sort of can be the elephant in the room. But I wanted to talk about the elephant because it's a pretty big deal. And that is that those around you can create either a healing or a harming atmosphere for you. And each person around you can do that in their own way. And many times the people that love you the most and want to help you the most, if they haven't process this stuff in their own life and their mind can unwittingly be very negative or bring a lot of negativity into the process for you. And so I think that the important part about that is that the book is written so that if you're not a patient with cancer, but you have loved ones with it, you get to process this too. And you get to understand that process as you go along. It's very important. So in chapter 6, we talk about family and friends and how to involve them in a healthy way in the process. Now that's extremely important because you don't want to go on this alone. But also, you as the patient need to remember these people are going through the shock themselves, even though they don't have cancer maybe, but they don't want you to have cancer. It's a whole process for them too. We also break down and get into the idea that you need people around you who are going to engender your process to becoming empowered and support you and bring positivity, you know, and again, not in a Pollyannaic kind of way that you don't care or you think it's no big deal or whatever. But literally bringing positivity into the situation to help you with your process, because the patient with cancer, you are the most important member of the equation. So sometimes we, we talk in this chapter about things that go on and ways to maybe manage family members. Sometimes there's people we can't, you know, not be around, but we can manage if they can't get to a place to be supportive in the process. We don't have to be around them as much. And maybe we want to enhance our time with other people who are more healing and more engendering of you getting to the place of being an empowered cancer patient, which again is all about getting you to the place, not, you know, not where you don't believe you have cancer anymore or whatever, but where you're in the healthiest place possible to deal with the fact that you have cancer. Yeah. Now, I did put chapter 7 that comes right after family and friends. I did put in one chapter on what I call the external cancer journey, the physical journey. So internal, we're talking about mental, emotional, and all of those effects. External would be the physical experience. And just to relate to it, so because not everyone's read the other books and all of that. What are the steps in the external cancer journey? So what are things that are anchors that you can think about with respect to, you know, what am I going to go through in the cancer journey physically? How does that make me feel? Are there things that are just basic that I can do within my own power to improve that process or deal with it, etc.? And then chapter 8 was something I wanted to make sure that I included because in my practice I did work with families who had children with cancer, and I wanted to make sure that we had a unique and special chapter just about children because when you have cancer yourself and you're an adult, or maybe your loved one has cancer, You can come to this empowered place to deal with it. And you can, you know, especially if it's yourself, you can sometimes get there fairly quickly. If you are someone who loves a child who has cancer, you're the parent of the child. It's completely devastating and heartbreaking, obviously. And if you've gone through that, you know, you especially know that because you more in most cases, more than you would ever want for yourself. You want the child, whether it's your grandchild or your child or whomever, you want them to be healthy and have a long life. And you realize you're older than them and you may outlive the child. And this becomes an incredibly big dynamic. So you take this part of the patient being the child, having to deal with things on, you know, an age-appropriate level, And we talk about that with respect to dealing with children on age-appropriate levels, et cetera. But there's that, but then there's your shock and your, you know, the horror of having this, you know, my child or my grandchild has cancer. And then there's dealing with you and the child at the same time. So you have this mixture of the family dynamics plus the interpersonal dynamics plus being the caregiver. It's an extremely, extremely intricate And difficult process. And so we get into that and we talk about it. We talk about it from the point of view of what's the best way to support a child who has cancer, but also what's the best way to support parents, grandparents, and the primary loved ones in that case. Now, chapter 9, the one right after that, now that we've gotten through the other phases, is called Now I Have Clarity, I Need Some Resources. So while there's a resource section, the last chapter is actually a list of resources with respect to websites, groups, books, all of those things that you can go for deeper dives into different areas. Chapter 9 is more how do I organize this in my head and in my life to try and get through it. So the first part of the book, you know, the first two-thirds of the book is building the idea that it is important to make this journey from diagnosis to being an empowered patient. And again, empowered patient doesn't mean that, you know, you think it's great you have cancer, you're happy about it or any of that. It means that you have the tools to be in control of your own mind and your own experience with the cancer every day, because that is what is going to give you a leg up or a number of legs up on your quality of life and maybe the length of your life with cancer. But in Chapter 9, looking at resources, what I try to do is tie together the information we've had in the first 8 chapters and say, these are places to start and make sure that you work through as you go along. Now, just like with anything with resources, you can have some people, you know, they already have really good, you know, let's just pick something, you know, no particular order or relevance. But let's say you got, you know, somebody who's already really worked through a lot with interpersonal family dynamics. And they're very good at, you know, enhancing the relationships that enhance health and wellbeing and happiness in their life. And they're very good at having boundaries with relationships that are toxic. That person is not gonna need as much time in that area, but maybe what they really need more time with is their internal dialogue, their self-talk, how to get themselves from looping into the really negative kind of dark things that can go on in the mind. Then you might have someone else who they've done the internal work and, you know, they're pretty good there, but they really have no skills at dealing with negative and toxic people. So in Chapter 9, with respect to resources, we try to tie up all the loose ends from the book as, as I went along and say, okay, now that you understand the process and you understand you're going to go through process like you do, and it's gonna be different from other people, what are ways to implement some of the positive things? Now, something that Working with the publishers and looking at design and readability and all that, pretty much every chapter, with a couple of exceptions, we have sort of the next step or to-do list at the end of each chapter. And the point of that is you can get kind of overwhelmed with all of the talk about all the different things, but what would be the 3 most important things or the 6 most important things that we need to do so we can move on and and gain mastery over this area so that we can move forward. So each chapter is involved in that. Another thing that I wanted to do, which became the last full actual chapter, chapter 10, was to ask and have, hopefully have people accept, and they did very graciously, patients either who were a cancer patient, were the parent of a child with cancer, or were a loved one of a cancer patient. So we have a little bit of each in there. And interview them and ask them about their process and ask them to give it really advice back to the reader who may not have gone through this before or may not have felt like they did very well with the process. And so these were all people that I had connection to, either they were patients or they were people I had helped out in other ways with their cancer process or journey. And the amount of bravery that the people in chapter 10 giving their firsthand accounts of what they went through and the intricacies of the process was amazing. We, we obviously had to edit everything because everything has to be edited, but we tried to keep as much of the original core feeling and ideas that the person had intact. So for example, on one hand, we have an adult with cancer who talks about their journey and some of the things that they just found You know, to be external sources of irritation and negativity around their cancer journey and how they dealt with it. But also, all of these folks were very honest about saying, when it comes to this particular thing, if you don't have cancer yourself, don't tell somebody with cancer, you know, these sorts of things because It's— and you can fill in the blank. It's either not correct, or it's demeaning to them, or it doesn't help build them up to a place of being in, you know, able to manage their cancer and the process they're going through. How's the best way to interact with somebody? You know, you feel so horrible for them. Their child has cancer. You know, what are better and worse things to say? What are ways to interact? We have a child of an adult with cancer, both adults, adult child of someone with cancer, who was a primary caregiver of their father going through terminal cancer, and they get into, you know, How can you support both the primary caregiver and the cancer patient without, you know, maybe being over— over-helpful or negative, etc.? So Chapter 10 was not— it was intended to be the experiences of others who had been there and had first-person experience. Now, I have first-person experience as somebody who helps people with their cancer as they're going through, and as a physician, etc. But that's different from being the parent of a child with cancer, or being a cancer patient yourself, or being the, you know, adult child of someone dying of cancer. And so it was with their great contribution that we got these interviews in, and they're extremely enlightening. And we decided to put them at the end of the book because They really cement a lot of the logistical things around just what's a better and worse way to interact with somebody, what's the best thing to do and the worst thing to do with and for somebody who, you know, who's dealing with cancer or supporting someone with cancer, etc. And then the final resource chapter is— there's not really writing in there other But what you have are resources of books that are mentioned and some other books that weren't mentioned in the text. You have resources for groups and deeper dives into things that we talked about in the book. You know, again, the book could have been, you know, 10 times more pages than it really was. And that would be, you know, going into The depths of how do you deal with all these family dynamics, the depths of how do you deal with the stages of grief in your life, the depths of how to deal with toxic negative influences, etc. But what I decided to do, because we all have different skills and exposure, was rather than go into the depths of those things, to give this blueprint and this journey that anyone can do when you're done with the book and to Provide that for you. And then if you really want to get into specifics about helping, you know, your family members interact better or have boundaries or, you know, every other thing, or you're a parent with a child with cancer or whatever, we have a lot of resources you can take deep dives into listed in the resource section at the end of the book. And And the final, the final installment part of the book, of course, is a conclusion where I try and wrap up some of these concepts and give some positive and empowering information out. So that's a quick cook's tour through the book. A travel guide for you, whether you're the loved one caregiver or you're the patient with cancer, to in a realistic and real-time manner move from this idea that I or my loved one has cancer, there's nothing I can do about that, it's devastating, and how do I get to a place where I have the most positive and healthy impact on either myself or my loved one? And that's that place of empowerment. And remember that the idea of empowerment is not really that it's a destination. I know it sounds like diagnosis to empowerment. I got to empowerment. Now I'm, you know, I'm there. What all of us who live life have figured out is we don't ever get to arrive anywhere. What we do is we arrive to a better place with better footing. And then life has this wonderful way of Kind of feeding back to us in areas we need more growth in. But it's much better to grow from the place of empowerment where you have a balanced, realistic feeling and approach to the idea of the cancer diagnosis. And you also then have the ability to support yourself and to be supportive to those around you without, or with bringing the least amount of negativity, toxic thoughts, and all that other stuff that is possible. And that's a super important part. And so that really is the idea behind the book. The other thing I was asked, because the first book Dr. Stengler and I wrote together, Outside the Box Cancer Therapies, is really more about therapies. And so people said, well, is this book Is it about, you know, therapies and cancer treatment and all that? Not really. This book is written for anybody in the sphere of cancer. So it is what I would call agnostic to your ideas about, you know, how your cancer is treated, the physical part of your cancer. This is about the internal journey, which really doesn't need to take into account how your cancer is being treated. How your cancer is being treated was outside the box, was the— that's what that was about. But this is about you and the process you're going through inside to become the healthiest version of you, either to help others or to help yourself with your diagnosis of cancer. The other thing that I think is important about the book, and I've had feedback from others, you know, around, is This falls under something that's another, you know, I think in, in— this is not a new concept, but I guess maybe in the modern social media age or whatever, we hear about this more. But the reason I think we hear about it is because the area that some humans do better with than others, just like every area, and that is, this is really about self-care. This is about doing the most positive things for you so that you can interact either with your disease or interact with others with a disease in the healthiest way possible. We don't get to opt out usually of most things in life. We have to take life as it comes and we have to play the cards we were dealt. But we can take life as it comes and, you know, play the hand we're dealt in either a very negative and anti-health, anti-self-care way, or in a very positive and pro-health, pro-empowerment, pro-self-care kind of way. And one of the things about that, it's difficult for folks, is self-care, as there's many memes out there now in the world of, you know, of social media that say, you know, self-care is not selfish. And a lot of people, you know, you're kind of raised maybe to think, well, you know, think of others first and this and that. And so you kind of think of that as, well, I'm not as important as what I do for other people or whatever. But one of the points of self-care is not that it's all about you. It's that The better you make yourself and the more empowered and grounded you are, the more you can help other people. And that doesn't matter whether you're the person with cancer or the person who's the loved one. The more empowered and grounded and centered you are, the more you will help yourself with your own process through the cancer or your own process about your loved one with cancer. And the more you will help others that you come into contact with. In, in the clinic over the years, we literally had people, you know, who sometimes had the worst potential outcomes with their cancer, etc., and they would be the most engendering of joy and hope and, and healing in other people. Who had cancer or family members who had cancer. And it's very obvious when you see this with people, and that only comes from one place. That comes from this place of being centered and empowered and living every day, learning whatever it is that we need to learn from the situation that we are in. And in the same way, although I've not talked as much about it, there's a story of these 2 cancer patients that kind of weaves its way through the book. And how it came out for them. The reason I compared and contrast somebody who did the process with a great deal of negativity and anger, never left that place, and then a person who started out pretty upset and negative and decided they needed to be empowered to deal with their process. The reason I juxtaposed those 2 stories, because they're very real stories, by the way, was You can see how not going through this process as described in the book, and it's just from real life, the book isn't magic, but how not going through that process can leave you not simply as a negative influence on everyone around you, but as a negative influence on your own health and your own survival and your own ability to go through things. And I've had people say, well, you know, that sounds mostly like it's for the cancer patient. And certainly the person with cancer has to get to that place if they want to, to be, as I say, daily empowered and deal with what comes and do it from that point of view so that that helps them in their disease process and their quality of life and helps them affect others. But the other side of it is, I've seen so many loved ones, support people, family members, etc., who hit the negative spiral and stayed over in the negative place and just You know, became toxic. And it wasn't just— this is bad enough— that they were a negative influence on their loved one with cancer, and they became a toxic kind of poisonous person to them. But I've also seen that damage and destroy the health of that loved one. You know, whether the person with cancer lives or passes away, as people with cancer do, I've seen it destroy the health of the support person than the loved one. So it's very, very important for all parties. As I said, the book is there as a guide, as a real-life, you know, manual, if you want to look at it that way, of how to process this stuff, what's normal. It validates your feelings. It also gives you tools to move forward. And so it's there for anybody. People who don't want to do this, that's also their choice. They probably won't be interested in the book, and that's fine. The book is not written for those folks. The book's written for all the rest of us who want to deal with this process in the best way possible as they move forward and as we all move forward with life. And the idea again of empowerment is not that it's a destination in the magical place. It is kind of a magical place, but that it is a place where you're centered and you understand realistically that things happen and things are going to happen every day we're alive. And we have the choice to deal with them in a better and healthier way or not. And I would posit to you based on a lot of experience that dealing with them in the healthiest way possible is the best thing you can do for your own health and the health of others around you that you care about. Well, we're getting down to the end of the program. We just got a few seconds here. So we're going to do another installment looking at the book from a different point of view next week. But the book is called Cancer: The Journey from Diagnosis Diagnosis to Empowerment. I'm the author, Dr. Paul Anderson. Lion Crest Publishing is the publisher, and it's going to be available on October 6th through any online resource. As I said, you know, Amazon, Barnes Noble, Powell's Books, etc. And also drabooks.com in a little while will have a special edition hardcover, but we're going to have a Kindle and a softcover available on all the electronic outlets. But that's all the time we have for today on Medicine and Health. I'm Dr. Paul Anderson, thanking you for listening to us discuss the new book, Cancer: The Journey from Diagnosis to Empowerment, and I'll talk to you all on the radio next week. Thank you very much. Thank you.