Cancer Diagnosis: It's Not A Death Sentence - Jane McGrath

In today's episode of the Mastering Life Podcast, your host Paul Lowe interviews Jane McGrath. Jane first encountered cancer in the 70's when she learned that her father had lung and oesophagal cancer. He went through all the treatments: the chemotherapy, the surgery, and the radiotherapy. Unfortunately, he died in 1981 an event that started her research trips about cancer.

Then in 2009, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She said that when you have cancer, you will know it. She had panic attacks, her hormones are doing things that aren't her and she got checked right away. She went to all three treatments: the chemotherapy, the surgery, and the radiotherapy. She had some severe after-effects from the chemo, even now. Tune-in today to hear Jane's inspiring story.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Journal. When Jane and her five chemo friends were undergoing the treatment, they each kept a journal. It has a dual purpose.  Firstly, it was sort of a 'Dear Diary' for them. Also, it could be a trigger for their care team, if one day they weren't feeling well - if something seemed wrong they weren't sure what. They could then look back and see what happened within the last week; and thereby a bit of detective work - CSI-type training - just so to see if there's something they could deal with straight away.
Support. Family. Friends. Online support. You do not need to feel alone. You will have support and you will soon find out who your true friends are.  Power of the mind. Does a strong positive mind that contributes significantly to overcoming cancer? Yes, it does. It depends on how you work with your mind. Mindset is very particularly important to start with.
Meditation. Go somewhere quiet. Put on the earphones and meditate - it's brilliant. Try it once, and you will just see what it's like.
Diet. When you look at what diets we had 200 years ago, or go back further, our ancestors and what we are eating now.  It's the American diet versus the Mediterranean diet because what we should be doing is the Mediterranean diet; but being half-American, Jane says she can say this.  The American diet is such rubbish. It should be blown out of existence along with certain people. It's fast food.
Environment. It is so difficult nowadays because of so much pollution. Toxic stuff around you that contributes to cancer. Be mindful of those.
Awareness. Be careful of what you eat, what you do. What's around you. Awareness and the power of awareness is certainly the starting point for any journey or any learning no matter what it may be.
Childhood. Everything goes back to what you have done and eaten in childhood.
What causes cancer? Bad sugar. Bad fat. You need to be aware of that. Yes, you can do something about it - have less. The more you can get rid of - or change it to something, more beneficial, more healthy - you are doing so much for your body and your body will pay you back a thousand-fold because it will help you, and it always will do. But you've got to help it. Your immune system is going to be shocked. Your immune system has got to come back. And that is the way you should do it, look after each other.
Treatments. - Specifically chemotherapy, chemotherapy drugs are so toxic. If they got a tiny bit of that on their hand, or any part of their body, it burns right through like acid. If you need to go to the loo after you have been treated, there's a special loo to that other people can't go. You have to be separated. That is in a nutshell. It is killing cancer cells and really good healthy cells that look after you. no one knows the percentage of which goes.  
Surgery. They only need to take off what needs to be taken off.
Radiotherapy. No problems with it. It was a bore for Jane.
I have this diagnosis. What do I do? The first thing to do is sit down, calm down, go to your happy place, and sit there for a little while.  Then, I would say, how do you want to go forward? do you want to go tell your family, tell friends, work people or first thing to do is get one of your best friends, when I say friends rather than family because the family can be overpowering at this stage. Get a level-headed friend who can be your big support who can go to appointments with you and stuff. There are some things you need to sort out but the main thing is how you're feeling at the moment.
Look at your diet. The sooner you start pumping lovely fresh fruits and vegetables. The sooner you will be helping your immune system to fight what is gonna go on. Take out the old rubbish and take in new ideas and procedures. Start eating well and start doing exercise.
Advice: Say, always I can work on that or I can work with that. Yes, I can change it. Write down what you eat in a week. How much of that is good? How much of that is bad? Get rid of the bad. Explore new foods, explore new lifestyles. Go for lovely long walks on nice days. Don't sit in front of the television or the computer all day. All or so many things you can change which is very easy and you can do it yourself and you will then sit back and say I did that. Oh, yes I'm really feeling good about myself. It is amazing psychological warfare takes part and say, yeah, I'm doing this, and I'm gonna keep doing it. And I think from that you would say, I'm having such fun doing this because I'm meeting all sorts of wonderful people.

BEST MOMENTS
"Yes your mind has got so much in there. Most thoughts can be rubbish. Don't worry about it. Let them be there. Recognize it and then move on. Don't try and get all your thoughts out because the more you try and get them out, the more you're thinking, I can't get them out."

"You are not your mind but it is a key part of you. It is imperative that you treat your mind with respect. But you've got to give it guidelines as well."

"I don't like calling it a battle. It is too aggressive... I actually prefer to think of it either as a journey or even better as a challenge, but I know exactly what you're saying. "

You have a symbiotic relationship with your body and with your mind. You've been together in your life and you will be together until death. You need to be able to work in sync. And if you can do that in any form, you're on a winner."

"But the one thing I wanted to do is say, I'm feeling like hell, I want to not have other people feeling like hell. I want them to be able to take something from this."

VALUABLE RESOURCES

Paul's Mastering The Game of Life Book...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Speaking-our-Hearts-Mastering-game/dp/1781332819

Paul's Emerging From The Forest Book...Emerging From The Forest

The Mastering Life Podcast...

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/mastering-life/id1421271122?mt=2

ABOUT THE HOST

Something that’s never been attached to Paul is the label ‘normal’ – for which he is immensely proud.  He definitely subscribes to being one of those mentioned – in the Steve Jobs quote:

“Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes... the ones who see things differently -- they're not fond of rules... You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can't do is ignore them because they change things... they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

Paul Lowe is the founder of PaulLoweHEARTS – which has a three-fold purpose. 

Firstly, to help you make the transition from Pain to Purpose; secondly, to get your inspirational messages and stories out into the world and thirdly, to support charitable organisations in their development & fund-raising.

We achieve this by:

Delivering our empowering Mindset For Success programmes
Sharing your true-life inspirational messages and stories through our Mastering Life Podcast and our Speaking From Our HEARTS book series
Utilising our significant charitable knowledge and experience.

Find Your Purpose – Make A Difference

Paul is totally committed to his HEARTS brand vision (an acronym) of:

‘Helping Everyone Achieve Results Towards Success’.

He has a long and distinguished track record of raising significant funds for a multitude of good causes; positively changing the lives of many disadvantaged children within the UK and globally – drawing on his colourful and wide-ranging life's experiences to help others do the same and achieve success in the game of life.

“Remember – Mastering Life Starts, By Embracing Our HEARTS!”

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ABOUT THE GUEST

3 Steps Against Cancers was created from a journal written and conversations between a group of patients, whilst undergoing chemotherapy. With input from Cancer Care Team professionals, this was developed into a book and adapted as a guide for others, to help them better understand the different elements of their treatment and how to best prepare for this journey.

Website: https://www.3stepsagainstcancers.com/  
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Email: [email protected]