Sunday 9 September 2007

Cancer is a message to change

I met a really inspiring man just last week. His name is Greg Anderson.

I think his story is truly amazing. He was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer in December 1984 and was given 30 days to live. So what did he do?

He didn't fold his arms and wait to die, like many others might have done. Mr Anderson refused to accept the hopelessness of his prognosis. He knew that many people had survived cancer even when it was supposedly "terminal" and he went in search of survivors. He interviewed over 16,000 of them and studied what they had done and he came up with a strategy for surviving cancer.

For Mr Anderson a cancer diagnosis is not a death sentence, but simply a message to change. He changed his lifestyle and he survived. And, like a man on a mission, he decided to help other people survive and even prevent cancer. So in 1985 he and his wife set up a non-profit organization called Cancer Recovery Foundation whose mission is "to educate, empower and encourage cancer patients and family members in the integration of body, mind and spirit into a whole-person health recovery strategy".

The holistic health concept formulated by Mr Anderson resonate with me and I have a lot to learn from this inspirational man. The most important lesson for me is the power of the human mind and spirit over the body. How encouraging that is!