Getting diagnosed with cancer seems like the end of the world. There is a stream of emotions that suddenly enter into the smooth life you were living in. Knowing that you have cancer is hard and changes your life dynamics drastically.

1. You feel overwhelmed: You may feel that your life is out of control or wonder whether you will live. And with the plethora of doctor visits and appointments and investigations, life just seems disorganized and hectic.
2. Anger: It is natural to be angry, and question, “why me”? You may feel resentment towards your doctors or the people around you. Frustration and helplessness are all emotions you may feel along the way.
3. Worries & fears: It is indeed scary to know you have cancer. Fear of pain, feeling sick, taking care of your family, managing finances, and fear of dying are all natual emotions that develop during cancer.
4. Stress & Anxiety: Your heart beats faster, your muscles ache, you don’t feel like eating, you sleep too little, or feel that tightness around your chest; feeling stressed and anxious is also obvious.
5. Depression: This is a common response to any illness, cancer, for sure. You are sad and drained out, you lose interest in your activities, and feelings of loneliness do come along with cancer.
6. Above all Hope: Most importantly, where there is acceptance, there will be hope. The “hope” is to get the best treatment, hope to fight cancer, and survive. A hopeful outlook is surely a key to fighting cancer.

How can we adopt some cancer-coping strategies? How to deal with these feelings, and take the road to fight cancer, a little more bravely and positively? Let’s have a look at what Dr. Preety and Dr. Prajakta encourage their patients to do. With their Homeopathy prescriptions, Integrated Approaches, they are also amazing at their counseling skills and meditation techniques. Here are some points from their desks:

• Facing Reality:
• Respond by confronting the full realities of your illnesses. Ask pointed and brave questions about the seriousness of your condition and the pros and cons of the various treatment options.
• Read up on these matters. Stay strongly motivated to know what you are facing. This way of coping has been found to promote some psychological adjustment.
• You might want to become more proactive in seeking information so you can choose your correct line of treatment.

• Maintain Hope and Optimism:
• Patients who are hopeful and optimistic about the future course of events show a better adjustment to their illness than patients who are pessimistic.
• Try to focus on timely treatments, and hang on to all the prayers and hopes to sail through this.

• Proportion and Balance:
• You would experience a degree of hope that was proportional to the positive survival chances that applied to you, but you also would experience a degree of worry that was proportional to the mortality rate in similar cases. Learn to balance between your feelings of worry and of hope and optimism.

• Expressing Your Emotions:
• Patients who express their emotions and concerns enjoy a better psychological adjustment than people who tend to suppress their feelings or keep quiet about them.
• Emotional expression gives an outlet for your feelings, a means of working through them, and an opportunity to obtain better emotional support. It is psychologically and immunologically healthy.

• Reaching Out for Support:
• Your friends and family can run errands, take you to appointments, prepare meals and help you with household chores. This can give those who care about you a way to help during a difficult time.
• Also urge your family to accept help if it’s needed. A cancer diagnosis affects the entire family. It also adds stress, especially to the ones who take care of you.
• Accepting help with meals or chores from neighbors or friends can help your loved ones from feeling burned out.
• Join a support group for mutual support and encouragement, discussion of common problems and ways of coping, and sharing of medical information

• Adopting a Participatory Stance:
• Take the initiative and actively participate in your treatment. Have a strong fighting spirit, and find ways of putting it into action.
• Consider alternative or holistic approaches as well.
• Embrace ways of promoting physical well-being that go beyond the normal recommendations.
• Include dietary changes, exercise, stress reduction, vitamins, herbs, yoga, acupuncture, meditation, prayer, hypnosis, guided imagery, and others.
• Consider Homeopathy as an adjuvant way of treatment of cancer. Even if the chemo and radiation are on, Homeopathy can still offer a lot of relief from pain, stress, hope, and a better quality of life. Homeopathy helps to infuse some hope, helps to deal with the anxiety, worrying, and stress of cancer, and also helps to strengthen the immunity of cancer patients. Our experiences at Healing Harmony with cancer, show that patients on our Homeopathy treatment as an adjuvant have helped patients to prevent recurrences and, in some cases, deal with the pains of chemo and radiation therapies. We also have cases of post-surgical cases of seroma after a cancer surgery that was treated totally with Homeopathy.

• Finding a Positive Meaning:
• While the diagnosis and treatment of cancer is an awful experience in many respects, it also can be a challenge and even an opportunity for positive change.
• Step back and do some mental assessment of how you have been living. Reflect on your values and priorities, and make changes in your lifestyles and personal relationships.
• This is often called the “enlightenment” or “gift” that comes with cancer, or the “wake-up call.”

• Spirituality, Faith, and Prayer:
• It would be a healthy practice to time and again remember the transience of human life and some things are just out of control. Surrender to the divinity above and within and observe what this simple act of bowing to the divine can bring. Surrendering makes us humble, it empties us of our false notions and beliefs about ourselves, and it can be cathartic. Praying can heal mentally and physically.
• Faith (but not superstition) allows our body to be in sync with nature and can also alter our immune responses. Doubt, on the other hand, does just the opposite.

• Maintain Your Self-Esteem:
• Take pride in the way you are coping with your illness. You might have a new appreciation for how much you are loved.
• Take pride in your ability to express your needs and ask for help. Perhaps your spirituality has been deepened by your cancer experience, and this can also help to renew your self-esteem.
• Your illness does not suddenly define you as a cancer patient, as if that is your new identity. Continue to do the things that are important to you.

Cancer cannot cripple love, cannot shatter hope and cannot conquer the spirit. The human spirit is stronger than anything that can happen to it!