ELIZABETH EDWARDS AND TONY SNOW

March 30, 2007  

Recently, Elizabeth Edwards, wife of former senator and presidential candidate, John Edwards, went before television cameras with her husband. He announced that her cancer, first diagnosed in the final weeks of the 2004 campaign had returned and spread to her bone. A few days later presidential spokesman, Tony Snow, also learned that his previous cancer had returned and spread to his liver. These two people, on opposite sides of the political spectrum, have a lot more in common than recurrences of their cancers.

When people like Edwards and Snow who have had a life-threatening disease heard about these two public figures, they likely reflected on how they had reacted to their own situations. People who have not yet had such experiences, likely wondered how they would react.

I recalled how I reacted when I first learned my kidneys were failing in 1979. I was surprised and shocked. I never thought something like that could happen to me. The doctors at Walter Reed Army Medical Center told me they didn’t know what caused it that and there was no cure. My disease progressed slowly, however, and I went on with my military career, temporarily.

Eventually, my kidneys failed completely in 1984. After a year of kidney dialysis, I received a kidney transplant 1985, which has now survived over 22 years. Increasingly these days, people with life-threatening diseases can tell similarly good news stories. Regardless, most “survivors” have life-long experiences with the therapies necessary to keep us alive. In the case of transplant recipients, it’s immunosuppression medications. In the case of cancer survivors, it’s various chemotherapy regimes.

Over the past 22 years, because of my own health history, I’ve taken a much keener interest in the way people react to life-threatening health crises. I’ve been doing my own unscientific research, of sorts, into how an individual’s attitude about his or her disease affects it.

My hypothesis, not as controversial today as it was 22 years ago, is that an individual’s positive mental attitude results in far better outcomes than result from a neutral or negative one. By positive attitude, however, I don’t just mean thinking positive thoughts.

Those who disagree with this hypothesis, and, believe it or not, there are those who do, claim that all those smiling faces simply are people who have benefited from the advances in medical science. Certainly there have been great advances in medical technology, but these two phenomena aren’t mutually exclusive.

Positive attitude in the context of fighting disease is more than just the power of positive thinking, it’s taking responsibility for the treatment of your disease and refusing to see yourself as a victim. 

First, it’s an individual’s approach to life. You refuse to allow concern about your disease to dominate your life. You live as normal a life as possible. You focus on positive and productive things. You have fun. You enjoy life. Most important you focus on other people and other things and not yourself. Medical science has already shown how such an approach actually helps a person’s body physically fight disease from within. Researchers learn more about how this works every day.

Taking the positive approach isn’t always easy to do, however. Dialysis and immunosuppression treatments are no fun and they have significant side effects. Chemotherapy frequently leaves people with little ability to enjoy life. Regardless, you do the best you can. You’ve heard the expression, “live every day as if it were your last.” I prefer, “live every day as if you are going to live a long time.”

Second, positive attitude means that you seek to learn as much as you can about your disease and its treatments so you can make informed decisions about what’s best for you. You question and challenge the medical professionals who are treating you. You don’t allow fear of invasive procedures or fear of death get in the way understanding your disease and yourself. In this regard, positive attitude and advances in medical technology go hand in hand. They have a symbiotic relationship.

Many people fear doctors. They avoid them because they don’t want to hear bad news. When, eventually, they have no choice they accept the inevitable, but they don’t believe there is anything they can do to change things for the better. They don’t question or challenge the doctors who treat them. They don’t do their own research on their disease, the treatments available, and the statistics about people who have the same disease and how they benefited from different treatments. 

Many of the tests necessary to detect disease, colonoscopy, mammograms, biopsies, cystoscopy, etc, are uncomfortable and invasive. People keep telling themselves they’ll go have one next week or next month but never do until it’s too late. Positive mental attitude means having these tests sooner rather than later.

People like Elizabeth Edwards and Tony Snow are examples of people who understand that you can’t take advantage of advances in medical technology if you don’t allow doctors to discover and treat your disease early. They take an active role in their own treatment. They accept responsibility and they make informed decisions.

Third, and this is the hardest one for people to accept, you understand that you and you alone are responsible for what happens to you. Of course there are good doctors and there are not so good doctors. In today’s health maintenance organization (HMO) health-care world, many people don’t get to choose their doctor. Health insurance, where you live, and numerous other factors determine the quality of health care you receive. So how can you be solely responsible for what happens to you?

The answer to that question lies in not seeing yourself as a victim, regardless of the level of your access to the best medical attention. The minute you allow yourself to think of yourself as a victim, you undercut the power of positive mental attitude.

Why do you have the disease and someone else doesn’t. Bad genes? Bad lifestyle? Perhaps you were just at the wrong place at the wrong time. Ok you can’t afford the Mayo Clinic. Few people can. No doubt Elizabeth Edwards and Tony Snow can afford better health care than you can. Nevertheless, most people have options. Knowing and understanding those options can make all the difference in the world. Learning about them and making the right decisions is your responsibility.

When John and Elizabeth Edwards went before the cameras and announced that they would continue their campaign for the presidency, many people criticized their decision. They accused John Edwards of putting personal ambition ahead of his wife’s health. Trust me, Elizabeth Edwards is more likely to survive her cancer on the campaign trail than she is sitting at home. Tony Snow is more likely to survive his cancer from the spokesman’s podium in the White House than he is in his living room.

This doesn’t mean that they won’t succumb to their diseases sooner rather than later. The mere fact that they have had cancer means that, statistically, they won’t live as long as if they never had it. Unless we commit suicide, however, none of us know when our time will come. However long they survive, it will be longer with a positive attitude and a positive approach to their disease than without them.

Nothing I’ve said here proves my hypothesis. I have no hard data. And while there is a body of credible medical research to support my argument, not everyone accepts it. All I can say for sure is that as someone who has had a life threatening disease, I know what I believe and what I have experienced. I know what I have observed in others.

Finally, up until now, I’ve made no mention of religious faith or prayer as a factor in fighting disease. That’s a whole different hypothesis. I’ll leave it to people wiser than I to determine its effects. But I wouldn’t bet against it.