Today I received a copy of Icon, a magazine produced by Canceractive which provides “integrated cancer & oncology news”. I read an article on Professor Karol Sikora, consultant oncologist at the Hammersmith Hospital who is a supporter of integrating conventional and complementary therapies in the treatment of cancer.
He is very interesting on the subject of hope, a commodity which I have mentioned seems to be in short supply at Calderdale Hospital.
“There is a further area in which orthodox and complementary medicines make difficult bedfellows. And that,” says Sikora, “is the unfathomable quality of hope. If you have had, for argument’s sake, three different types of chemotherapy for, let us say, metastatic colon cancer, there is, realistically, not much more orthodox medicine can do for you. A doctor may not want to force that information on somebody, but if asked directly whether there is anything else to be tried, you have to say ‘probably not’. People then react in different ways: some curl up and die, some embark on a round-the world or Internet odyssey searching out secret cancer cures. Many complementary practitioners,” says Sikora, “take a different view. They won’t give up. I remember having a right ding dong at a meeting with Bristol and the Hammersmith about the issue of hope. Is it ethical to say there is nothing more to be done, even if you are approaching medicine as a hospital technician? If you gon’t convey that message are you offering false hope, which was the accusation levelled by the orthodox against the complementary. Not so,” says Sikora, clearly a clinician with heart. “To improve the quality of life is an aim in itself. And if part of that quality of life stems from imparting hope, then delivering it must be part of the package.”
I have so far only had one course of chemotherapy not the three he is talking about here & have been considerably deterred from undergoing further treatments because I gained the impression from my meeting with the oncologist that my case is hopeless. This has been further reinforced when I phoned the clinic to get some information & could hear the change in tone in the nurse’s voice from how she used to speak to me when there was a chance of cure. She also made a remark which included the sentence, “Well now we’re not talking about curative treatments.” If only there were more doctors like Professor Sikora around, ones who can offer some hope to patients.
Elaine
Contact details for Professor Koral including e-mail and background AND more links:
http://www.prostatecancertreatment.co.uk/about-us/karol-sikora
Contact details
Professor Karol Sikora
79 Harley Street,
London
W1G 8PZ
Â
Tel:Â Â 020 7935 7700 ext 541
Fax:Â 020 7935 2719
Email: karolsikora@hotmail.com
More links: http://www.cyclacel.com/company_profile/press2003/2003_1_27.htm
http://www.studentbmj.com/issues/05/02/news/50.php
http://www.doctorsforreform.com/page.asp?pid=114
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/556640.stm
A very pro-active person – there’s lots more links to go at
Pleased to hear that hope is getting a bit of recognition – living in hope sounds better than curling up and accepting someone elses idea of inevitable. Good luck babe. xx Jools
Elaine – I’m with others who suggest you get a second opinion. You need to have confidence in your oncologist, otherwise how can you sustain the hope?
You’ve got balls, girl, don’t forget ’em.
I’ll keep checking in to see how you are.
Elaine
Nobody can take hope away from you. I hear you and struggle for words which don’t come out in cliches. Â Â
I am a firm believer in the power of thought. Â Â Telepathy and things which are largely lost in the western world… Â I’ve set aside some time to think about you each day quietly. Â It might otherwise be thought of as prayer but I prefer to think of it as the amazing ability of the human mind to communicate without phones or e-mails or letters and things associated with modern life. Sorry if you think I’m a nut. Â I’m not religious really at all but I have great belief in the human spirit.
I’ve been searching around for quotes to do with hope and a few are below. You’ve probably heard them all before but still – words have comforted me through tough times.
“The best and most beautiful things in this world cannot be seen or even heard, but must be felt with the heart.”  – Helen Keller
“There is no medicine like hope, no incentive so great, and no tonic so powerful as expectation of something tomorrow.”  – Orison Swett Marden
 “Hope sees the invisible, feels the intangible and achieves the impossible.” – Anonymous
 “The important thing is not that we can live on hope alone, but that life is not worth living without it.” – Harvey MilkÂ
 “Look to this day, for it is life. For yesterday is already a dream and tomorrow is only a vision. But today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness, and every tomorrow a vision of hope.” – Sanskrit Proverb
 Where there’s hope, there’s life “Hopelessness tied to heart, cancer deaths” (SN: 4/13/96, p. 230) seems to be an example of the science of medicine discovering something that practitioners of the art of medicine have known for generations. My father, who died in 1962, was a family practitioner (M.D.) in Chicago. I can distinctly recall his telling me that, if a patient was determined to live, death from even the most life-threatening illness might be delayed for an unpredictable length of time. - Philip C. Freund
 Lee, Mass.
“The best and safest thing is to keep a balance in your life, acknowledge the great powers around us and in us. If you can do that, and live that way, you are really a wise man.”  – Euripides
“Just as your car runs more smoothly and requires less energy to go faster and farther when the wheels are in perfect alignment, you perform better when your thoughts, feelings, emotions, goals, and values are in balance.”  – Brian TracyÂ
“Being on the tightrope is living; everything else is waiting.” – Karl Wallenda, world famous tightrope walkerÂ
“Whether you think you can or you can’t, you’re probably right” – Henry FordÂ
 Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense regardless of how it turns out.” – Barbara Johnson
“Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.” – Dale Carnegie
“And in the end it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.” – Abraham Lincoln
“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the things you think you cannot do.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
 “Dealing with it is the operative word.
 I found myself at seven years not battling it.
 Not struggling with it.
 Not suffering from it.
 Not breaking under the burden of it, but dealing with it.”
 – Michael J. Fox referring to his Parkinson’s Disease
 Barbara Walters interview, 20/20 December 4, 1998Â
 “Courage is being scared to death and saddling up anyway.” – John Wayne
 “Oh, my friend, it’s not what they take away from you that counts – it’s what you do with what you have left.” – Hubert Humphrey, after cancer surgery in 1978
 “The worst thing in you life may contain the seeds of the best.” – Joe Kogel, 21-year melanoma survivor, writer and actor
 “Cancer is a journey, but you walk the road alone. There are many places to stop along the way and get nourishment – you just have to be willing to take it.” – Emily Hollenberg, cancer survivorÂ
Elaine take the nourishment offered by your friends and family – sit back and soak it up. Â You must feel the vibes being directed towards you. Â Â So many people – so much energy going your way, so many good wishes and such concern and people wanting to help. Â I suppose the thing we would like to give you most is some spiritual balm for the soul and the intellect. Â Â I hope we achieve it in some small way. Â If not, it won’t be for the want of trying….
The nurse’s comment that “now we’re not talking about curative treatments” was out of line and unprofessional. A nurse’s job is to care for patients, not to comment on their cases. An oncologist’s job is to offer realistic predictions based upon similar cases and a patient’s own data. Such predictions can never be certain, for obvious reasons. As the American baseball sage, Yogi Berra, once said, “Predictions are hard to make, especially about the future.”
The article about the role of hope echoes similar things that I have read here in the States recently. There is certainly a theory and practice of treatment that includes hope as an active ingredient. Personally, I would prefer to talk about the power of “Will.” “Hope” seems to me a bit wishy-washy, but what do I know? I’m only 74 years old.