10 Ways Not to Encourage Cancer Patients

Our guest blogger today is Yvonne Ortega. Yvonne shares some great reminders for friends and loved ones with a touch of humor any cancer survivor can identify with and appreciate. Thanks so much Yvonne!

10 Ways Not to Encourage Cancer Patients

Point out they shouldn’t be scared, angry or depressed, because they are Christians and that would ruin their testimony.

Suggest they have cancer because of the stress in their lives. You may not be a doctor, but you just know.

Remind them that lack of forgiveness causes cancer, and they need to forgive somebody.

Explain they probably got cancer because they didn’t eat right, and from now on they need to take responsibility for what they eat.

Make sure you tell them about your aunt, cousin, grandma, friend or neighbor who had cancer and died.

Mention the horror stories you’ve heard about chemotherapy.

Don’t forget to inform them about the friend you know whose skin burned because of radiation.

Visit them as soon as they return from the hospital and keep talking to them even when their eyes are at half-mast.

Tell them to call you if they need anything. They probably won’t call you, but you’re off the hook, like your telephone.

Insist that they must be strong because it could be worse.

Copyright © October 28, 2010 by Yvonne Ortega

Breast cancer affects everyone it touches, whether firsthand or through the life of a loved one. Counselor and teacher Yvonne Ortega discovered this when she was diagnosed with breast cancer and began her journey. In Finding Hope for Your Journey through Breast Cancer, she shares with readers her personal triumphs and setbacks with humor and refreshing candor, always reminding us of God's desire to meet us exactly where we are. In this repackaged book, sixty devotions are divided into sections--diagnosis, surgery, treatment, and recovery--each incorporating Scripture into daily life. It also includes a new chapter on living with the possibility that cancer may return. Ortega's attention to even the most basic hopes and fears that a cancer patient faces each day offers encouragement that can come only from one who has been there herself.

Cancer After a New Heart

Thanks to Cindy Scinto for today's post. Cindy's incredible story has been published in her book "A Heart Like Mine".

From Cindy's website:

"I am passionate and intent on sharing my story of perseverance and how God has sustained my family and I during many years of turmoil and tragedy. Regardless of what comes my way, I am happy to be alive and trust that God will be with me every step of every hurdle. "

Thank you Cindy for sharing a small part of your story with us today.

Cancer After a New Heart

My body curled into a tight ball on the bunched up hospital sheets. They smelled like the sheets in a cheap hotel room; pungent bleach mixed with sanitizer. The chemotherapy treatment was done when the last drop of poison dripped into long tubing connected to the intrusive catheter in my chest. The second hand on the clocked ticked towards 1:00 pm. After four hours, the morning treatment was complete.

But the evening treatment would begin at 5:00 pm. Right when I started feeling like I might survive, the next bottle of rusty colored medicine would hang and begin dripping for hours of infiltration into my blood stream.

“It’s like pouring gasoline into your veins,” Dr. Nogle stated after a nurse rushed to rinse her hands at the sink. A few drops of chemo had splattered on top of her left hand and immediately singed her skin, leaving red blisters behind. I witnessed the burn. That’s going into my veins. How can they do this? Isn’t it burning me up inside?

Four months prior, I survived a dangerous heart transplant resulting from countless heart attacks, 30 angioplasties, an experimental thoracotomy, double bypass, open heart surgery, and dying twice in the ER. All this occurred like an ambush on my health in less than three years with no plausible reason for heart disease. The donor heart I received came a day after Dr. Nogle told me there was no hope. But this heart only became available because no other surgeon wanted to risk transplanting it. It needed extensive repair and came with a viral type cancer.

The cancer manifested four months later and after conventional chemo failed, a stronger, more lethal one had to be used. The doctors in my home town hospital exclaimed how that hadn’t used it in 20 years and it took that patient a year to recover from three weeks of treatment. I would have to endure 60 days of two treatments a day, seven days a week in an isolation room at the hospital. When I was released, a regimen of six months, everyday of the week, with home nursing care continued.

I lost most of my hair. Early on I prayed, “Lord, please don’t let me lose all my hair and be a pudgy Italian with a turban.” He extended grace to me. >smile<>

But I survived and recovered well. I kept my sense of humor and my hair grew back as curly and thick as it was before. Today, I do everything I can to avoid a recurrence. The virus that brought on this cancerous malignancy is permanent.

I am grateful for Cec’s book, When Someone You Love Has Cancer. I wish the people around me had read it when I was in need of care. He writes about the absolute needs instead of the perceived needs people conjure up. It’s like tradition to make meals or send flowers. When those gifts arrive for someone and their family suffering with cancer, their hearts sigh with disappointment. Read Cec’s book. He offers the practical gifts of true ministering when someone you know has cancer.

Has cancer attacked your life? Then keep your attitude on “…whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” (Philippians 4:8 NIV)

By Cindy Valenti-Scinto, author, A Heart Like Mine, Finding God’s Will for Your Life, book one of the Heart Like Mine Trilogy, with book two, A Heart Like Yours, Understanding God’s Will for Your Life, to release later in 2011.

Online:

http://www.aheartlikemine.com/
http://www.cindyscinto.com/
http://cindyscinto.blogspot.com/

Find Cindy’s book at: https://www.winepressbooks.com/product.asp?pid=2751&search=a+heart+like+mine&select=Keywords&ss=1

Also available as an e-book compatible with all e-book readers.

Mourning Coffee

Thanks to our guest blogger Donna Smythe Teti, for today's moving post.

“The Lord is close to the broken hearted and those crushed in spirit he saves.”
34:19 the New American Bible

Mourning Coffee

“Hi Donna, let’s meet at the park for coffee.” My twin sister Sue called over the phone. “I will pick up some coffee along the way.” Or “Hey Sue, do you want to meet at the bookstore and grab a coffee?” I’d call and ask her after we put our kids on their school buses at opposite ends of the same town.

We spent many a morning with a coffee in hand and some great conversation. We fell over each other’s words as we chatted about our kids, husbands, our faith and how to solve all the world problems. We gave each other piece of mind, comfort and encouragement as we worried about all the things moms worry about.

But suddenly at the age of forty my dear twin sister had a massive stroke. In three days she was gone. With great pain and great faith I let her go.

My faith carried me for a while but as the days passed naturally I missed my sister more and more. I missed our daily conversations and the comfort and insight that she gave me on life. Without her words of wisdom my faith began to waiver. I think faith is easy until one has to really believe in it.

Each morning after the kids went to school I sat in my family room, drank my coffee and “talked” to my sister in Heaven. I told her how much I missed her and how scared I was. “How am I going to get through this grief Suzy?” I shouted out loud one morning to her as I sipped from a steaming hot cup of coffee. It was then I felt a message touch my heart. Jesus is here too. Sue seemed to say.

Wow! In my grief and anger towards God I had forgotten that! So I poured a fresh cup of coffee, sat down in my family room and thought about Jesus. I shut my eyes and tried to picture Him there in my home chatting with me over coffee…just as Sue and I had done so many times. What would I say? What would He say?

I offer to you whose hearts are broken, the poem I wrote about that visit with Jesus.

Warmest Blessings,

Donna Teti

Having Coffee with Jesus

Each morning as I awake
Sadness floods my heart again
So I pour a cup of coffee and pray
My heart will start to mend

On this particular morning
As my grief began to soar
I went to get the paper
And found Jesus at my door

As He entered through the doorway
Sunlight covered every wall
When He smiled and looked me in the eyes
He stirred my very soul

He thought that I could use a friend
Who knew sorrow and knew pain
He saw that I was grieving
And that is why He came

Jesus knew that I was hurting
And feeling life was quite unfair
And He knew I spent each morning
With good coffee and good prayer

Jesus wanted me to know
In that early morning hour
He was there to share with me
His gentle healing power

He felt that it was important for me
To see Him face to face
Sometimes we need to be engulfed
In a strong and warm embrace

As He wrapped His hug around me
His love through me did flow
Then He asked to sit with me awhile
And have a cup of Joe.

As I poured His cup of coffee
I had so much on my mind
Yet He knew what I was thinking
And He answered, she is fine

He told me she is here with me
Each morning while in prayer
She continues to love and care for me
Each day throughout the year

He tried to answer questions
Though the mysteries could not be told
But He asked that I just trust in Him
For someday they would unfold

As we sat and drank our coffee
I stared on in disbelief
That Jesus would actually come to me
And help me through this grief

Jesus said He enjoys these mornings
When I sit with Him and pray
Even though I can not see Him
He too is with me every day

As Jesus drank His coffee
I spoke of sorrow, loss and pain
He did not speak but His Presence there
Was healing just the same

He understood my emotions
As He wiped my tears away
He confirmed with a sympathetic smile
These feelings were OK

I said I feared my broken heart
Would never heal completely
Because the loss I felt inside
Was in my soul so deeply

Jesus agreed the pain would subside
But never quite go away
So He would surround that pain with love
As I met with Him each day

He said that when He walked the Earth
He turned to His Father in prayer
It got Him through each moment
When His life seemed quite unfair

He encouraged me with compassion
To look for joy between the tears
There are many Blessings in my life
That will make for happy years

Jesus eyes lit up as He reminded me
Our lives will go well beyond
As He described the joy in Heaven
When all heartache will be gone

Jesus said that He would carry me
Through this aching and this loss
As His Father in Heaven had done for Him
The day He met His cross

He said this is why it is such a gift
Just talking with Him each day
It enables Him to comfort me
As I sit with Him and pray

When Jesus left my house that morning
I knew His Spirit was still there
So I refilled my cup of coffee
And continued on in prayer

Copyright © 2006 by Donna Teti


Donna Teti has been published in both Guideposts Magazine and Cecil Murphey’s Christmas Miracles. She is also a 2008 winner of the Guideposts Writer's Workshop Contest. Her story Balloons of Hope has been published in Chicken Soup for the Soul’s Book of Miracles available in stores September 21, 2010.

http://www.donnateti.com/

Words of Comfort for Times of Loss

Through great personal loss, authors Cecil Murphey and Liz Allison, http://www.lizallison.com/index.html have gained insight to share with others who are going through uncertainty, depression, and loneliness after losing a loved one. They also offer advice for those comforting someone who is grieving.

Among comforting paintings by artist Michal Sparks, brief stories, personal experiences, and prayers offer a meaningful path toward healing for readers when they:

• feel alone and lost in their grief and want to reconnect with others and to life
• seek to make sense of their loss alongside their sense of faith, purpose, and God
• want to honor their loved one without clinging to the past in unhealthy ways

Readers are given gentle permission to grapple with doubt, seek peace, and reflect on their loss in their own way without judgment and with understanding and hope. A perfect gift for a loved one dealing with loss.

If you purchase a copy of Cec’s newest gift book, Words of Comfort for Times of Loss, for $11, I will give you a hardback copy of Heaven Is Real (a $22 value) free. (The offer is good while supplies last.) You might want to donate these books to your church library, a grief support group, a ministry, or give them to a friend. Contact Twila Belk at twila@gottatellsomebody.com or 563-332-1622.

Sharing Your Story

"For each life is a book, not to be read, but rather a story to be written. The Author starts each life story, but each life will write his or her own ending," Max Lucado.

Do you have a story to share? Most of us do and most of us need a little help to get started. If telling your story is a dream of yours, then read on, my friend.

If you’re looking for insight into the publishing industry, have questions about getting published or marketing your finished work, or just need some plain old-fashioned encouragement on your writing journey, QCCWC is the conference for you.

From all over the country authors and participants gather to share ideas, to spend time together finding and giving help and encouragement in a conference unique because of its heart.

Over and over again we've received feedback from people sharing comments like:

"There's a different Spirit at this conference".

"I didn't know the authors and teachers would be so accessible."

"I can't wait to try out what I've learned."

"Thank you for such a wonderful conference!"

We hope you'll take time to come and see for yourself the difference two short days can make in your writing and in your life.

From the website:

"The Quad-Cities Christian Writers' Conference is pleased to announce that some of the best writing instructors in the nation will join us in 2010 for two full days of breakout sessions, continuing sessions, keynote talks, one-on-one appointments, and inspiration.

In order to make an impact with your writing, it's important to LEARN THE CRAFT. That's what the Quad-Cities Christian Writers' Conference is all about. You won't find publishers, agents, and editors in attendance, but you will experience the care and coaching of a professional, knowledgeable staff. Our faculty will answer your questions, guide you, teach you, and show you how you can use your writing to change the world one word at a time."

Join us April 9-10 in Eldridge, Iowa.

It could be your first step toward the thrill of seeing your work in print.

For more information or to register go to http://www.qccwc.com/

I'll be looking for you!

Check out the special early-bird rate for registrations postmarked or electronically submitted on or before Saturday, February 20! $$ off and a free book as well!

A message from the author of When Someone You Love Has Cancer

When Shirley walked in from the garage, she didn't have to say a word: I read the diagnosis in her eyes. I grabbed her and held her tightly for several seconds. When I released her, she didn't cry. The unshed tears glistened, but that was all.

I felt emotionally paralyzed and helpless, and I couldn't understand my reaction. After all, I was a professional. As a former pastor and volunteer hospital chaplain I had been around many cancer patients. I'd seen people at their lowest and most vulnerable. As a writing instructor, I helped one woman write her cancer-survival book. Shirley and I had been caregivers for Shirley's older sister for months before she died of colon cancer.

All of that happened before cancer became personal to me—before my wife learned she needed a mastectomy. To make it worse, Shirley was in the high-risk category because most of her blood relatives had died of some form of cancer. Years earlier, she had jokingly said, "In our family we grow things."

In the days after the diagnosis and before her surgery, I went to a local bookstore and to the public library. I found dozens of accounts, usually by women, about their battle and survival. I pushed aside the novels that ended in a person's death. A few books contained medical or technical information. I searched on-line and garnered useful information—but I found nothing that spoke to me on how to cope with the possible loss of the person I loved most in this world.

Our story ends happily: Shirley has started her tenth year as a cancer survivor. Not only am I grateful, but I remember my pain and confusion during those days. That concerns me enough to reach out to others who also feel helpless as they watch a loved one face the serious diagnosis of cancer.

That's why I wrote When Someone You Love Has Cancer. I want to encourage relatives and friends and also to offer practical suggestions as they stay at the side of those they love.

The appendix offers specific things for them to do and not to do—and much of that information came about because of the way people reacted around us.

It's a terrible situation for anyone to have cancer; it's a heavy burden for us who deeply love those with cancer.

Cecil Murphey

When Someone You Love Has Cancer
Publisher: Harvest House ISBN: 978-0-7369-2428-3 Retail: $10.99

For more information about the book or the author, contact Twila Belk at twilabelk@mchsi.com or 563-332-1622.

Visit Cecil Murphey’s Web site: http://www.themanbehindthewords.com/

Press Release for When Someone You Love Has Cancer

(Atlanta, GA) The World Health Organization recently released a report claiming that by the year 2010 cancer will be the number one killer worldwide. More than 12.4 million people in the world suffer from cancer. 7.6 million people are expected to die from some form of cancer. That’s a lot of people, but the number of loved ones of cancer sufferers is far greater. What do they do when a special person in their life is diagnosed with this devastating disease?

Bestselling author Cecil Murphey understands intimately how loved ones suffer. The diagnosis of breast cancer that had spread to the lymph nodes put Murphey’s wife, Shirley, in the high-risk category. At least eight of her blood relatives had died from cancer. Shortly after the doctor confirmed Shirley’s cancer suspicions, her older sister was diagnosed with colon cancer.

“I went emotionally numb for several days,” Murphey said. “I felt helpless. I also realized that I needed to affirm my love and encourage Shirley before the surgery and through her recovery period. I learned many lessons about loving and caring for someone with cancer.”

Murphey brings his experiences as a loved one and many years of wisdom gained from being a pastor and hospital chaplain to his newest book When Someone You Love Has Cancer: Comfort and Encouragement for Caregivers and Loved Ones (Harvest House Publishers). His honest I’ve-been-there admissions and practical helps are combined with artist Michal Sparks’ soothing watercolor paintings.

Readers of When Someone You Love Has Cancer will receive:
· Inspiration to seek peace and understanding in their loved one’s situation
· Help in learning the importance of active listening
· Guidance in exploring their own feelings of confusion and unrest
· Help in how to handle anxiety and apprehension
· Honest answers to questions dealing with emotions, exhaustion, and helplessness
· Spirit-lifting thoughts for celebrating the gift of life in the midst of troubles
Murphey explains why this is a much-needed book: “Most books about cancer address survivors. I want to speak to the mates, families, and friends who love those with cancer. I offer a number of simple, practical things people can do for those with cancer.”

About the Author:
Cecil Murphey is an international speaker and bestselling author who has written more than 100 books, including the New York Times bestseller 90 Minutes in Heaven (with Don Piper). No stranger himself to loss and grieving, Cecil has served as a pastor and hospital chaplain for many years, and through his ministry and books he has brought hope and encouragement to countless people around the world. For more information, visit http://www.themanbehindthewords.com/.
Author/Speaker now securing interviews.