techniques alone. They remind the health care community and people who are struggling with a disease that anything is possible when mind-body-spirit techniques are brought into the healing equation.
•Ayurveda Medicine — Ayurveda medicine treats disease holistically by including physical, mental and spiritual factors. From the Ayurveda perspective cancer has many causes—toxic environment, devitalized foods, negative emotions, sedentary lifestyle and lack of spiritual purpose or fulfillment. Emotional, mental and spiritual stagnation contribute to a weakened immune system.
A person develops cancer as the result of biological, emotional and spiritual imbalances. Treatment involves diagnosing the patient’s constitutional type (humor) and state of bioenergetic balance. Three stages of treatment include removal of the accumulated toxins in the body, balancing the excess biologic humor (constitutions—air, fire, water) and rebuilding and rejuvenating the body. Treatment includes herbal medicine, diet, massage, detoxification, breathing exercises, yoga, meditation and mantras. Ayurveda offers a holistic lifestyle of wellness.
•Carl Simonton, MD — Dr. Simonton, the Father of Psychosocial Oncology, died in 2009. He generated a new level of awareness and understanding concerning the mind’s role in healing. In Getting Well Again (1992), he highlights the role of emotional stress in the development of cancer. Through relaxation and visualization, people worked to overcome their cancer. Cancer Recovery Foundation continues his legacy today.
•Louise Hay — Ms. Hay guides many toward wellness. Her book, You Can Heal Your Life (1984), her affirmation tapes and DVDs associated with this book, as well as other books, offer insights and techniques to heal the body, mind and soul. Louise Hay healed herself of terminal cancer with mind-body techniques alone, a great inspiration for other cancer patients. Self-love and ownership, not blame and condemnation, enable people to look within themselves to uncover the psycho-spiritual causes of their illness and work through them.
•Deepak Chopra, MD — Dr. Chopra describes in Quantum Healing (1990) how the individual is central in the process of creating the universe that exists within the individual’s perception and without in the physical world. Awareness, attention and intention are an important part of the physical healing process. He describes the individual going to the deepest core of the mind-body system to the point where consciousness starts to affect healing. Bringing the body back into balance and harmony reawakens its own healing ability.
•Lawrence LeShan, PhD — Dr. LeShan encourages cancer patients to cope with the losses and disappointments of their past and do what makes them feel more alive. In Cancer as a Turning Point (1994), Dr. LeShan describes how people can make psychological shifts and create lives with personal meaning and passion. This mind-body approach influences the body’s ability to heal itself. Many of his clients with late stage cancer go into remission.
Chapter 3
Don’t Think or Feel; Just Do It!
(Surviving a Mastectomy)
November and December 2000
The morning I entered the hospital to have a left modified radical mastectomy with reconstruction, I was plummeted into a stunning reality. Nothing and no one could rescue me from this assault to my body and wellbeing. Once again, I had to endure a traumatic experience that left me feeling vulnerable. There was no escape. Surviving two divorces and repressed memories of sexual abuse prepared me to face life’s challenges courageously. Over time, I learned to trust that everything would work out OK.
Paul drove me to the hospital on November 29, 2000. My other support people were thousands of miles away, which did not seem to matter because I felt alone in what was about to happen. People offered to be there, but I thought I would need them when I got out of the hospital. Wrong!
As I entered the large bathroom off the surgery waiting room with its eight curtained stalls, I was stunned that I could be so calm. Observing myself, I thought, “Would I be this calm if my life were in serious danger?” I only had stage I breast cancer and had to cope with having a mastectomy with reconstruction, about a four-hour procedure. The surgeon would remove the breast tissue from the left breast, including the nipple and place an implant under the chest wall muscles. On the right side she would insert an implant so the two breasts looked symmetrical. She would remove the nipple and take a piece of skin from my abdomen to place over that opening. I would come back six months later so she could take another piece of skin on the other side of my abdomen to build a nipple.
What the Expert Says...
Oncoplastic Surgery: A Creative Surgical Approach
for Breast Cancer Patients
by Gail S. Lebovic, MA, MD, FACS
For Additional Information visit: www.ASBD.org
The term Oncoplastic Surgery describes an evolution within the field of breast surgery that was started in the late 1980s by a few pioneering surgeons. Concerned with the disfiguring surgeries commonly associated with breast cancer removal, these individuals sought a more creative surgical solution. Basically, the idea behind Oncoplastic Surgery is to combine the principles of surgical oncology (cancer removal) with techniques from plastic and reconstructive surgery. In this way, the surgeon plans the cancer-removing portion of the operation while keeping in mind the aesthetic outcome, and utilizing techniques to improve the appearance of the breast(s) afterwards. Oncoplastic Surgery does not describe a particular surgical procedure; it represents a comprehensive approach to surgical planning intended to achieve:
1.Wide surgical margins free of tumor
2.Reduced risk for local recurrence
3.Optimized cosmetic outcome by preserving more skin
4.Breast volume reduction for patients with large breasts and breast cancer
5.In general, fewer surgical procedures overall
6.Prophylactic removal of the breast tissue with reconstruction for patients at high/serious risk of breast cancer (i.e., genetic)
Studies have demonstrated that the Oncoplastic approach adds to the oncologic safety of breast-conserving treatment, and ultimately better cosmetic outcomes following breast cancer surgery. This occurs because a larger volume of breast tissue can be excised and wider surgical margins free of tumor can be obtained. Oncoplastic techniques can be utilized routinely, and they are especially useful in specific cases such as removal of large tumors, when standard breast-conserving approaches have a high probability of leaving positive margins behind. By obtaining a “cleaner” margin, the associated risk of local recurrence can be diminished without creating an unacceptable deformity of the breast.
A preoperative assessment includes a discussion regarding the cancer, but will also include the details of methods of breast reconstruction and whether surgery is needed on the opposite breast such as reduction, lift, or augmentation in order to achieve breast symmetry.
Over the past several decades, techniques for breast reconstruction have undergone dramatic improvements. With the advent and integration of breast implants, tissue expanders and new methods for natural tissue flap reconstructions, there have been dramatic improvements in the appearance of reconstructed breasts. However, even though plastic and reconstructive surgery has seen and achieved great success, recent studies reveal that most women undergoing mastectomy (as many as 80%) are not having breast reconstruction. Unfortunately,
