After my operation in May 2010, whilst I was alone on the ward, between my wife’s visits, I did a lot of reflecting but also more importantly started to follow my instincts more than I had ever done before. I am and always will be a huge Star Trek fan and during one of those moments, a particular scene in one of the Next Generation episodes came to me. When I first saw it, it’s meaning struck a chord with me which had remained buried until then.
The Enterprise had been involved in an encounter with the Borg and having been badly damaged, had taken shelter in a nearby Nebula to hide from the Borg cube, and make repairs to the ship. In one scene Captain Picard enters 10 Forward, the crew Recreation area, which is noticed by the bar manager Guinan. She goes straight to Picard (this is not verbatim, but how I remember it) and says ‘Captain what are you doing here? You’ve never been here before, is there something wrong?
Picard replies ‘I’m just following an old naval tradition of a Captain touring his ship to check on repairs, check the on the morale of the crew and provide encouragement.’ Guinan replied ‘If I remember correctly, that was a tradition carried out by a Captain, who didn’t expect his ship and crew to survive the coming battle. If a person goes into battle expecting to die, one way or another, they will find a way to die that day.’
I thought then in May 2010 and still do today, that such words apply to people diagnosed with a high grade cancer. If you tell someone they have 12 – 18 months left to live, one way or another, they will find a way to die within that period. People give up because they have been deprived of any hope of possible survival and subsequently die because it is what they and health care professionals expect to happen.
By changing the mindset of Oncologist's and health care specialists to encouraging people to have hope, faith, and belief that they may be able to live beyond a high grade prognosis. Would I believe, be a real ‘game changer’ in enabling more people to live longer and better lives. Part of this process is to look at their diet and way of life, could what they have been eating or drinking had an effect, or how they have been living etc.?
Whilst I don’t have any proven scientific or medical qualifications/research to prove what I think is right, I do have 13 years empirical knowledge and experience of living with the consequences of 2 grade 4 glioblastoma’s, which I think should count for something.
I also think we should remember a fundamental principle of life, ‘all life is terminal’.
I really do think such a change could have a massive impact on survival rates.
