Three Factors Determining Cancer Patients' Survival: Courage, Reason, and Knowledge

Catherine M. Poole of the United States is a patient with malignant melanoma, a cancer that progresses to death very rapidly. After developing this cancer—known to Chinese patients colloquially as "ehei"—Ms. Catherine M. Poole, following her initial grief and panic, rose up to fight it. While actively seeking doctors for treatment, she also studied a vast amount of anti-cancer knowledge on her own. After fifteen years of battling melanoma, she unfortunately developed a second cancer—skin cancer—but once again defeated it with her reason and courage.

Catherine eventually became a cancer expert respected by both doctors and patients, and also the most renowned volunteer in the melanoma field. Before falling ill, Catherine had been a journalist. Afterward, not only did she tirelessly study medical knowledge about cancer, she also founded a foundation and several organizations in the United States, devoting herself to promoting melanoma awareness. Thanks to her and her colleagues' efforts, the early detection rate of malignant melanoma in the US rose greatly, saving many patients' lives. She gradually became an authority in the global fight against malignant melanoma and was widely respected at various international melanoma conferences.

Ms. Catherine is one of the typical long-term survivors I have met. They are rational, courageous, and thirsty for knowledge. In an era when all kinds of false anti-cancer information fly everywhere, they rely on independent thinking to distinguish truth from falsehood, refuse to be brainwashed, and thus make rational choices—not only saving their own lives but also saving others'.

In China there is likewise such a melanoma patient; his Sina blog name is Shengdi Meiya ("Toothless Holy Land"). After developing widely metastatic malignant melanoma, he was treated by the famous Chinese anti-cancer TCM physician Sun Bingyan and survived successfully for more than ten years before relapsing. After his cancer diagnosis, he began to teach himself TCM, popularize TCM knowledge, and help fellow patients. When his disease recurred, Dr. Sun Bingyan had already passed away; relying on the TCM knowledge he had taught himself over more than ten years, he treated himself and has survived to this day.

Because my own mother had stomach cancer, I have been in the anti-cancer circle for about ten years. Those ten years were extremely hard. But during them I was fortunate to witness anti-cancer stars across China and TCM and Western physicians from all over the country whose results were recognized by patients, and I learned a great deal about anti-cancer treatment from some of them. Because I was diligent and eager to learn, I built a very solid foundation in TCM; these ten years also helped quite a few cancer patients find relief from their suffering, and I need not be falsely modest about this.

I have long followed up long-term survivors, exploring the reasons for their long survival, and gradually found some commonalities among them. Some of these long-surviving cancer patients have lived for more than fifty years; for them, cancer is like an unexpected fall in life—it did cause them some hardship, but it did not take their lives.

The commonalities these people share are that they are rational and courageous, and after falling ill they actively study all kinds of anti-cancer knowledge. They are rarely fooled by the various charlatans who play at gods and ghosts in society, so they rarely waste their precious recovery opportunities in the hands of these quack masters.

Of course, these commonalities are not present in one hundred percent of long-term survivors. Some patients survive purely by luck, having encountered a highly skilled doctor. There was a tongue-cancer patient who, after being treated by the famous Chinese Western-surgery expert Professor Qiu Fazu, survived for more than forty years and is still doing well today. Professor Qiu Fazu operated on him; the surgery cut through roughly one-third of the patient's body, and afterward the patient only took some routine anti-inflammatory tablets, receiving no other treatment.

During my contact with this elderly patient, I felt his fiery temper and vigorous vitality. He is one of the most quarrelsome old men I have ever met, with no control over his emotions at all. By TCM's theory that the seven emotions cause disease, he should long ago have dropped dead.

Qiu Fazu is the founder of Western surgery in China; in the field of Western surgery his influence is like Mount Tai and the Big Dipper. Such a patient's good fortune was bestowed by his doctor's superb skill, but it also had a great deal to do with the rationality with which he chose his treatment plan. The patient's own fiery temper also revealed his fearless courage. Many cancer patients live in terror after diagnosis, but he did not; I think this may be the best benefit his fiery nature brought him.

Compared with these self-reliant cancer patients, many more become like frightened birds after diagnosis, living in tremor. The slightest sign of trouble in the body immediately feels like a catastrophe; they lack the courage to face reality and solve problems, lose their composure, and panic under the threat of death.

To go on living, a person actually needs such a tenacious will to survive, the striving for self-improvement our ancestors emphasized. There is no greater sorrow than a dead heart. Once a person's inner spirit has collapsed and he no longer has the courage to resist death, disease easily overcomes him.

Once I visited the Peking Man Site at Zhoukoudian and saw how scientists estimate the age of ancient humans by measuring bone age; more than half of these ancient humans did not live past fifteen. Our human species has survived in nature by constantly struggling against it and striving for self-improvement, which is how we reached today's average life expectancy of seventy or eighty years. Without this self-improving will to live and the courage to fight disease, where would life's guarantee come from?

I have seen all sorts of absurd masters discussing the meaning of life, and I feel that humanity has grown more foolish the longer it lives. If we stopped posturing, I think the most meaningful thing in human life from ancient times to the present has been to struggle to live a few more quality years. This meaning of survival was collectively chosen by our species. Compared with all so-called meanings of life, it is real and unadorned.

If you get cancer, face reality. The reality is indeed cruel, but if you want to survive, you should listen less to ghost talk, steel yourself, and have the courage to fight the disease—that is the bare minimum. Life is like encountering raging storm waves on the open sea; everyone can only save themselves. If you give up, no one else can save us.

Ten years ago, as a Jin Yong fan, I had quite a chivalrous streak and liked to refute and expose con artists cloaked in anti-cancer garb on public forums, so that fewer people would be fooled. Later I found that such scammers were increasing by the day and impossible to stamp out, and it wasted the time I needed for my own scholarship. So I gradually stopped doing such foolishness and devoted myself to serious medical research and popular science.

The abundance of scammers is an objective phenomenon of human society. There are scammers not only in China but abroad as well; in the field of anti-cancer it can be described as a swarm of demons dancing. I believe that the only thing that can truly arm us against the endless stream of scams is our own reason.

The fact is that among the patients I have seen or treated myself, those who lived longer really do tend to be the more rational ones. They are not easily brainwashed; the basic, normal reason they possess helps them recognize reality, distinguish truth from falsehood, and make correct decisions.

If a person lives irrationally and gets fooled, then wailing and complaining about society afterward is useless. If we cannot see through some obvious nonsense that violates basic facts and basic logic, whom can we blame for being deceived? Are we meant to live in a nanny's swaddling clothes for our whole lives?

One of the most decisive reasons human life expectancy keeps increasing is that humanity has mastered an ever-richer store of practical knowledge and skills. From birth, we face too many threats of death: cold can freeze us to death, heat can bake us, water can drown us, fire can burn us, and poisonous food can poison us. Yet why do humans generally live longer and longer? The credit goes to the various survival knowledge our species has gained in the struggle for existence.

After cancer, if patients want to go on living, it is their responsibility to learn all kinds of genuinely beneficial anti-cancer knowledge. Some patients—like Ms. Catherine, whom I mentioned at the beginning of this article—have studied until they themselves became cancer experts more professional than many oncology doctors.

One long-surviving cancer patient I have treated has been with me for seven years, and before that she had already survived more than six years; she has now lived about fourteen years after cancer. This elderly woman had originally been a Western-medicine specialist, and later, through hard study, became a TCM specialist as well. I deeply admire her love of learning.

Another lung-cancer patient I am currently treating has survived fourteen years after cancer. I see that her husband has taken her everywhere seeking medical care and has himself studied widely on anti-cancer knowledge; although he is a farmer, when he talks about cancer he is no less than an expert.

I also treated a lung-cancer patient from Nanjing; by this year she has had lung cancer for more than ten years. She had been only an accountant, but now she often writes TCM decoction prescriptions for herself to handle her various symptoms; her familiarity with medicinal properties would put many clinical TCM physicians to shame.

These patients confirm the Chinese saying: "Long illness makes a good doctor." Those who are long ill but do not die probably owe this to their active study of all kinds of knowledge. Some cancer patients and their families gradually learn to set up IV drips for the patient at home and provide various daily medical care. These are all fruits of their active learning. No one can care for us better than ourselves, because only we ourselves are with ourselves twenty-four hours a day.

Upholding the scientific spirit and studying serious medical knowledge can not only help us handle emergencies that medical staff cannot deal with in time, but also help patients distinguish true from false among all the information about cancer. With a little more compassion, one can even benefit others, as Catherine did. This can undoubtedly help patients defeat disease.

Cancer is just a chronic disease. We need not collapse mentally after diagnosis, and families need not go bankrupt chasing treatment just to prove they have responsibility and love for their kin. As long as one keeps a clear head, a strong heart, and a willingness to learn, one can certainly help oneself or one's family, winning the longest possible survival.