ANDREW:
Hello and welcome to the American Cancer Society's Cancer Survivors Network, the service created by and for cancer survivors. In Seattle, I'm your discussion leader, Andrew Schorr. Our topic, men over fifty, going on with life, after treatment for colon cancer. On the phone with us are three men from around the country, who are between the ages of fifty and sixty-four. One is a long-term cancer survivor, who had a colostomy and then shortly afterwards, had a reversal of that. The other two gentlemen have finished treatment more recently. Each of them has insights we think you'll find helpful. Over the next few minutes, we'll discuss issues such as, how cancer changes your relationships and view of life. Making treatment choices based on overall quality of life. Dealing with the consequences of misdiagnosis. Releasing the burden of end-of-life choices, and accepting that treatment and healing are more than just medical issues.

Well let's begin. Joining us from Port Angeles, Washington, not far from where I am here in Seattle, is Dennis a schoolteacher for his career in junior high school and elementary school. Dennis, thank you for joining us. Dennis, I understand it's just two years ago that you had surgery for colon cancer and then you had some experimental chemotherapy, some pills you took to help deal with the effects of colon cancer. Now it intrigues me that one of the first things that you told our producers as we were preparing for this was that the whole thing was, these were your words, "an interesting experience". Now, that's not normally the way someone would describe a diagnosis of cancer. Tell me what you mean by interesting and also that you knew that something was wrong.

DENNIS:
Well, one of the things I do is do yoga. I just started yoga and have been in it just a couple of years, but one of the things that I was doing as I was going through the yoga stretches and such, I became constipated and went through the usual prune juice treatments, but then I realized something was wrong, and as I realized that, I went in to see my doctor and got the diagnosis. Still didn't know it was cancerous at that point, and I got the sigmoidoscopy, which is only a third of it, and then got the whole real deal, the colonoscopy and then they spotted it and cut it out, cut part of it out and it just started turning cancerous. From there on, well in retrospect, a fascinating process in terms of, well, lots of different issues. One is just your look at life. Cancer is, that's a scary word, and as I grew up as a kid, that was an automatic sentence of death. But I realized that you know, I needed to look at things differently, and it was given to me in a package.

ANDREW:
And it must have been scary also for your wife and your five grown children to hear that Dad has cancer.

DENNIS:
Yeah, very much. And the other thing that made it interesting, I guess, is that I'm very careful about health, food in particular. My wife was raised in a family, that was very very health conscious and eating proper foods and this and that, so I'm a very vigorous person and healthy looking, and it just shocked everybody that knew about it, family first, and then, how could this happen to somebody so healthy looking? I move well and am somewhat athletic, and so that part of it was a shock to lots of people. But my decision at that point was to decide to let everybody I knew know this because I believe so strongly in support. Part of it through prayer but part of it through just people knowing about it and saying, you know, we're pulling for you.

ANDREW:
But also though, colon cancer, letting people know about it is also taking a very prevalent form of cancer out of the closet because as you were talking about cancer over the many years, colon cancer is one maybe because it's related to bodily function, that people normally would keep very private.

DENNIS:
Oh, yeah. I discovered that as soon as I started letting people know. I got all kinds of stories from people, oh, I had that a year ago, or my brother had that; all kinds of colon cancer stories, so I very much agree that it just isn't talked about and I believe it should, because in my case what they told me if I had gone in like I should have about 50 and got the scope, it would have been taken care of without any difficulty at all.

ANDREW:
Well, that leads to a question. You have those five kids. What do you say to them as far as them doing preventative medicine and measures so that the kind of cancer that you have that can be detected in a pre-cancerous way with the right diagnostics, what do you say to them about being checked?

DENNIS:
Oh, I say, do it, just do it. My son is 30 and he went in right away and got it done. Every one of them. And that's the other odd thing in this whole thing is no history of it in the family. Either side.

ANDREW:
So, Dennis, you know you sound okay. You've had this brush with cancer, your treatment is completed, you're in kind of you know you sound healthy so you're kind of in the prime of your very early senior years, you're just about ready for Medicare, and I imagine that you still have a lot of hopes for a very long term life with your wife and kids and grandkids.

DENNIS:
Oh, yeah. I'm doing what I love to do. I'm a storyteller, and I go to, I tell stories to kids every week, and it's something I just love doing, and I could go out and chop wood now and mow the lawn and I just love to be vigorous. Still taking yoga, and but it's given me a look at priorities in life. I finally figured out, you know, you have an intellectual notion, but my whole body and whole being is taken up with the notion that relationships that are more important than anything. And I used to think the Seattle Seahawks were important. I don't anymore.

ANDREW:
So it's that look of appreciation that you get from a child when you're telling a story, or your relationship with your wife or your kids or your friends, and the moment of that is very precious.

DENNIS:
Yeah, and it's sharing your world in an emotional, emotional's not quite the word, but it's about, dealing from soul to soul rather than from mind to mind, I guess is the way I would get it. When you see people as very, very precious, and you see people that well, you have some affection for, well, you tell 'em, and you see people you have some admiration for, well, you tell 'em, because you might not be around to tell them.

ANDREW:
It sounds to me like you're not carrying on this way because you think you have a legacy of terminal illness that is gonna shorten your life, and maybe that colon cancer has been dealt with and you'll live a long time, yet you're living in the moment a lot, anyway.

DENNIS:
Well, you discover, I think, what life really is about. You know, the eternal question of "who am I and why am I here?" you get a chance to really explore that this way.

ANDREW:
Well, I'd like to try out some of these ideas on the two other gentlemen that we have with us. Let's meet our second guest today. That's Drew, who's down in Tampa, Florida, way across the country. Drew, I understand that you've been very active as an advocate for cancer patients. I want to review your medical history a little bit. You're 55, and it was back in 1986 that you were diagnosed with colon cancer. You had surgery and then briefly, for about three months, a colostomy. And that was reversed. So, tell me a little bit about 1986, how all this happened to you, and how it changed you.

DREW:
Well, I'll be glad to tell you. It was surely a wake-up call. Like Dennis, I'm one of these healthy people. In my college, I was the person you'd come and talk to about health foods. I've been a runner for many, many years and I still continue to be. Actually, it was possibly a problem for my own physician, because I was in such good health. I started noticing problems a good bit in advance and I did go in. But, unfortunately for me, my physician didn't do the proper work-up. So a period of time went by as I started sliding away. I was diagnosed with just something simple, which actually I still have, Irritable Bowel Syndrome. But at that time, I had a huge tumor growing in me. Ultimately I found my own tumor. Now remember, I'm 42 years old at this time. This is a time when people should not be getting colon cancer and, by the time I finally was diagnosed, I had lost a lot of weight. Actually, when I went in for my surgery, I only weighed 118 pounds. And after two weeks in the hospital, I came out weighing 99 pounds.

ANDREW:
What do you weigh today?

DREW:
I've weighed, for most of my life, around 140 pounds as I do now. I'm a slim, not too tall person. So if you can imagine a survivor of Auschwitz, that's exactly what I looked like. I was a very, very sick person, and very few people would have bet that I would have survived a year, much less that I could now be in my 13th year.

ANDREW:
What stage was your cancer at when it was finally dealt with?

DREW:
Well, it was stage-two. The tumor was really big. It was larger than a baseball. It was outside the colon, and it was wrapped around my appendix, somehow. I had a number of feet of small intestine taken out because there was involvement there. And if you want to talk about luck, I'm one lucky person. Because virtually anybody who has it that far normally has metastasis around the body, and that's not good. But for some reason that escapes me, there weren't any distant cells. Of course, I did have to make a decision at that time in '86. There really was no chemotherapy that was effective. My only option was to potentially do radiation, which I opted not to do. I also had the colostomy, which a lot of people would find not fun. People would come up and kind of ask me about that. I have run into people, in my work at the American Cancer Society, who would have elected to die rather than have that. But I didn't have a whole lot of options, and I was just glad to be alive. A colostomy was just a minor thing in order to survive. Fortunately, I was monitored closely, and I have not had any recurrence of the colon cancer since then. I changed my life. I had to slow down, and I changed my view of life. Even today, I see life differently. I surely don't sweat the small stuff. I see people all the time getting upset about little things. I think, after you've gone through an experience like this, the little things are really not important.

ANDREW:
Looking back, for each of you, do you have some anger? Here you felt like you were living healthy lifestyles. Drew, do you think that maybe a better work-up early on would have discovered your cancer earlier?

DREW:
I'm just not that type of person. I'm a person who accepts the way it was. I did have lots of family and friends, and they all wanted me to sue this doctor, which I did not do. It's just that I was so happy to be alive, and to watch the sun come up, and have the possibility of seeing my daughter grow up. I didn't want to sue. I'm the only cancer patient survivor in my family. There is no other cancer. Sometimes things happen, and there's not much you can do, and being angry about that is just not me.

ANDREW:
Drew, I know you're very active in Florida in speaking to cancer survivors, and speaking out about this. Tell us some of the key points, relating to men in your age group dealing with colon cancer, that you really believe and want them to know.

DREW:
Well, that's correct. Yes, I worked with the American Cancer Society program called CanSurmount. I'm most active now. I've worked with 350 or so cancer survivors over all ranges, and I would make a number of suggestions. Number one is, you have to have a positive outlook. You can harbor all these things, "oh poor me," but I found that those people had a lot of problems in surviving. You have to accept. Accepting is one of the most difficult things in life, and accepting that you're a cancer survivor is very difficult. And for men, men tend to be macho and kind of slough it off. But I would tell them that it's good to join support groups, and to be with other people, and to talk about it. Even though it is about your colon, and people typically don't like to talk about that. The important thing is to take one day at a time. You have to enjoy every single day that you have, and not worry about tomorrow.

ANDREW:
What is your outlook, Drew, in that you say some people might be surprised that you survived this long. Now it seems like you're pretty healthy and a long-term survivor. What's your outlook for the future?

DREW:
Well, I hope to live a long life. I hope that I will not get cancer again, but if I do, I'm going to have to deal with it and then move along. I do not think that I would be a survivor if I had not been in as good of health, if I had not been a runner, if I had not had the good diet. I think having a healthy lifestyle is going to give you quite an edge over someone that does not. But I'm here for the duration.

ANDREW:
Do you think that the healthy lifestyle helps you, should there ever be a recurrence? That it's not just for somebody who's facing cancer for the first time? It's still important as you make your efforts to be as healthy as you can be now.

DREW:
Absolutely. Even though I'm a cancer survivor, I had extensive surgery, and I've had a series of problems. Fortunately, they've been non-cancer problems, but a lot of it has to do with those days and all the extensive surgery. Each time that I've had to go in for different types of surgeries and little things, I pop right back quickly. So, it's just a reminder to stay in good health. You know, if I did have a recurrence, then I'd be there fighting again.

ANDREW:
I want to ask you about just one other thing. Although it was just three months...which could be a short time looking back, but seems like a long time when it's happening...you did have a colostomy. There are smaller percentages of colon cancer patients who have that, whether it's for just a little while or for the rest of their life. What's your view of having a colostomy?

DREW:
Well, when I was told that, I really didn't understand the concept. Then finally, when I went home from the hospital and I had this colostomy, you know, it hits you. I'm not saying that it's not something that does not change you, but at that point, I was recovering. I was in a tremendous amount of pain, plus I had this on top of it. It was difficult. But, when my mind was clear from a lot of the surgical pain, I was quickly able to say, "Hey, this is the vehicle by which I survive." The colostomy wasn't as bad as thinking I had to go back in again, and have another major surgery. But I would recommend to anybody that...it's probably not what you want, but if it's a vehicle that lets you stay in this world, then go for it.

ANDREW:
For people who have it long-term, though, there can be the embarrassment of having this equipment and the daily routine that goes with it. They might have concerns about whether it's visible, or whether it will be awkward in their relationships with other people. What do you say about that?

DREW:
It was very interesting that during my recovery period, one of my colleagues, who I'd worked with at the college for many years, called me up to wish me well. And he told me, "You don't know this, but when I was much younger, I had an ileostomy." So he didn't have a colon. He said, "If you have any questions, or problems with various things, you can surely ask me because I've lived most of my life this way." I realized that, yes, there are those problems that you just mentioned. Again, you can get around those things. You're there with your family, you're there with your friends. That's just the way things happen to be. So, you deal with it.

ANDREW:
All good points.

ANDREW:
We have one more survivor to bring into our discussion today, and that's Ray who's down in Knoxville, Tennessee. Ray, I know you're 50 and you've been a project manager with the Department of Energy, and back in 1997, got this diagnosis of colon cancer and then had surgery and then I think what you call a resection. My understanding is that the tumor was actually left inside but was kind of bypassed. Is that right?

RAY:
Yes.

ANDREW:
And then you had chemotherapy, many rounds of different types of chemo, you're married with no kids, and you were diagnosed at a very late stage. Tell us about your diagnosis and how advanced the colon cancer was when finally it was dealt with.

RAY:
I had stage four colon cancer, which is about as bad as it gets. In spite of that, I had virtually no symptoms, up until just right before I went in and was diagnosed. I'm kind of the odd man out in this group, in that I've been given a very healthy body, but never took particularly good care of it. Never watched my diet, don't exercise. In spite of that, I'd never been in the hospital, never had a stitch in my body, been remarkably healthy. On the summer before the diagnosis in 97, I was trying to lose some weight, and wasn't having a lot of luck. Had lost a few pounds, but my stomach just didn't seem to be getting any smaller. In fact, it seemed to be getting a little larger. And I noticed that when I would turn sharply, I could feel something inside me shift. So, as I said, I haven't had to go to the doctor much, so I kind of avoided it, waited about two months before I decided this was getting worse, not better, and I probably ought to at least have it looked at.

Within about a week of my going in to see the internist, they had me on the operating table. It was very obvious that I had a tumor, a lot of ascites, which is a fluid buildup, they went in to do the surgery, the tumor was slightly larger than a softball at that time, outside of the colon, but the problem was it had also metastasized to the abdominal lining and had completely covered the inside of my abdomen. So the surgery was basically just to shut off the ascending colon, the right side of the colon, and allow the left side to function without blockage. What you worry about with something like that is a blockage. So I went from having never to go to the hospital to having to spend a week in there and major surgery, quite a shock. As it was, it went very well. I certainly wouldn't, I don't know about anybody else's experience, but mine wasn't a bad experience. There wasn't a lot of pain with it, pain was very manageable.

ANDREW:
We were also told that you were a really sick guy.

RAY:
Yeah. As a matter of fact, my first oncologist told my wife privately here in the hospital room, this was the first time I'd ever seen the man, came in the hospital room and took my wife out. And I remember telling a friend of mine, it's not a good sign when your doctor takes your wife out of the room. He took her outside, he said, "I've seen people in his condition go very quickly. You need to get your affairs in order." In hindsight, I don't think the man expected me to live three months. I took the CPT11, it absolutely knocked me back. In bed for a week, terribly weak, terribly sick, which I found out later wasn't even a particularly strong reaction to CPT11, and I told the doctor at that time that I wanted to discontinue it. So after about two rounds of it, I did. I took two doses of it and I decided that if I was gonna be that sick, I didn't want to continue with it. Now you have to bear in mind that stage four colon cancer is a different kind of beast. It's not considered to be a curable cancer. What they hope to get out of the chemotherapy is to relieve your symptoms and maybe extend your life a little bit. So I was faced with either being very sick and maybe having some relief of symptoms and a little life extension, or going on without the chemo. And in my case, other than the chemo, I felt great. I had the fatigue you normally get with cancer, but I still don't have any what would have been warning signs, I don't have blood in the bowels or things of this nature.

ANDREW:
So, now you're no longer on the chemo?

RAY:
Haven't' been in a year.

ANDREW:
And you're feeling pretty good?

RAY:
Other than fatigue, yeah.

ANDREW:
One of the things that I mentioned early on when I said we're gonna talk about various topics, one of them was releasing the burden of end of life decisions. So, I have this image of your wife being called out of the room, and what you said the doctor said, and certainly probably ultimately some discussion with you about the severity of your condition. So, we're all gonna die sometime of course, but this is more than a wakeup call for you. So how have you dealt with this Ray, about really a situation where may be different from Dennis certainly and Drew is a long-term survivor. Your situation has advanced to the point where who knows how long you're gonna live, and you have your wife. What have you dealt with both emotionally, and technically how have you dealt with your affairs?

RAY:
The first year really we didn't do too much. I got some minor things in order, but it wasn't until I went off the chemo the second year that I began to really start making plans. The wills, setting up the money affairs, things of this nature. That really hasn't been a big problem, but I wouldn't rush that, because there is a sort of feeling of finality to it. It's almost like accepting that "well, I'm probably going to die pretty soon." And that's not something that I gladly accepted. I can't say that I'm not terribly afraid of it, but on the other hand, I'm not rushing forward to it, either.

ANDREW:
Where's your head at these days as you've gone through this last couple years. And also how has that affected your relationship with your wife and friends and your thoughts about the future.

RAY:
It's been a very positive thing. If it weren't for the fact that it has a good chance of killing you, cancer can be a real positive thing in your life. And I think both Drew and Dennis have mentioned that. It really refocuses your attention and I've had a tendency to be maybe a little bit of a distant person, a little cold, and it's really helped me on that a lot. It's opened me up to the warmth of family and friends, it's tremendously strengthened my bond with my wife, which was already strong. It's probably emotionally and psychologically much harder on her than it is on me. If you've ever been in a situation, I'm sure those of you with children have, where you're child is hurting or spouse is hurting and you want to do something and can't. You know how frustrating that can be. And I think it's in many cases, we need to be very very aware of the effect it has on the family. It can be a very positive force or in some families I suppose it could be a negative force.

ANDREW:
Well, let me ask you about this. So you meet people along the way, you're working still, Ray?

RAY:
No, I stopped working on the last day of April.

ANDREW:
So you meet people, though, in your activities, and you know how it is, when somebody has cancer, people have a way of asking how you're doing by saying, well, how are you doing Ray? How are you Ray? With that emphasis on are, like, well, they're looking for little signs that the end is near, you know? They're kind of taking their cues on how your health is from what you say or whether you've been to the doctor, or whatever, and I think we've all had, I'm a cancer survivor myself, does that happen, and how do you react to it? You know, when people are kind of checking to see well gee is this disease advancing further.

RAY:
I've gotten pretty well used to it. It's not a problem with me. I've kind of become a poster boy for colonoscopies, I keep recommending that everyone get them. In my case, they probably could have diagnosed me eight years ago if Id had a colonoscopy. I had a physical at that time where I shed a little blood in my bowel, and they said, Aw, that's probably hemorrhoids, don't worry about it. And in hindsight if we'd done a whole colonoscopsy given the slow rate of colon cancer, seven to fourteen years, they probably could have got me in Stage 2 or 3 at the latest.

ANDREW:
And are you bitter about that? I was talking about that with Drew, when his family said, well gee, you should sue that doctor. But what about you?

RAY:
It's a very reasonable thing to think. You know, eight years ago, I was 42, which is pretty young for colon cancer. I was exhibiting no symptoms other than just a little bit of blood. And again, it was something that he found at the exam, it wasn't something that was showing up regularly with me in the mornings. No, I have no resentment about it at all. That seems to be kind of a common thing. I've noticed among the three of us, and I suspect it has a lot to do with how well you deal with cancer. You really need to let go of the resentment and you need to deal with it as it is, on a day-to-day basis. I'm here now, what can I do now.

ANDREW:
And speaking out for friends and family to help them avoid this in the first place.

RAY:
I immediately insisted my younger brother and sister have colonoscopies and my brother had a few polyps found, which is pre-cancerous growth, so something for him to watch, and it may have saved his life.

ANDREW:
I have a question for each of you about relationships, with whether Drew, it's like with your daughter or Dennis or Ray, with your spouses. About their reaction to all this and what role you played in helping them. What have you done in your dialog with friends and family to help them?

DENNIS:
Well, for me it's just talking about it openly, and saying well, what if I did die? I think I'm gonna be around a long time, but you know. But if I did, there's some things you have no control over. And also I found that allowing their emotions; to hear their emotions, to listen to them deeply and be a listener and get them to talk about their feelings, helps a lot.

ANDREW:
So, if you see somebody who looks a little tense, you would even say let's talk about what's bothering you? Invite them to do that?

DENNIS:
Right, Oh yeah.

ANDREW:
Drew, what about you maybe with your daughter?

DREW:
Well, it was very strange to come home from the hospital with a colostomy. My daughter was just six years old then, and the imprint of the look on her face when she saw me in the room that I was at that time, is, you know, something that I will have for the rest of my life. We've discussed that, my daughter and I, and she knows, even though she was young, the severity of the situation, but she's also learned from that and like the others have mentioned, it's something that we're gonna keep on top of even though she's just nineteen years old. But in regard to some friends, and I'm sure the other two have seen this as well, some of them had a lot of fear, and they tend to like move away from you. It was interesting the people who, you didn't see them as close friends, became even closer in their support and in their interest, because they saw you as yourself, not as now a cancer survivor. And I could also tell you in my many years of working with cancer survivors that in a lot of respects, we did more emotional support for the family members as you were mentioning than for the cancer survivor, him or herself.

ANDREW:
Now, Ray, you know, you've talked with our producers about how healing is more than just the medical part of it. Maybe you could talk a little bit here about how you found that yourself, healing beyond the treatments or recovering from the treatments.

RAY:
Sure. One of the things that I think helped us most over these last two years in dealing with this, it was absolutely devastating to my wife. We've been married twenty years now. It really hit her a lot harder emotionally than me. My gastroenterologist gave us a book by Dr. Bernie Siegel, and we read quite a few of his books they particularily recommend visualization and meditation, which is something I've done just about since day one with this. I think that goes a long way, I really do. I can't prove for or against, but I really think that there's pretty good evidence your mind has a tremendous effect on your body, and to the extent that you spend your time dwelling on this horrible thing that's happened to you, you're losing ground.

ANDREW:
Ray, when you think about the future, do you think about it in terms of quality or time or do you even think about a time frame.

RAY:
I tend to take a pretty short view, but it's not that I'm expecting to die from this. That's a little bit of an exaggeration. There's about an 8 percent five-year survival rate. That's not a real good number, but there are a few people have actually beaten stage four colon cancer. I recently saw a movie called "The Edge" with Anthony Hopkins, and one of the lines out of the movie was, "what one man can do, another man can do." And that's kind of my idea on it. Other people have survived this; I can survive it, too. I wouldn't like to put a lot of money on it, but the possibility is there and that's the window I'm looking for.

ANDREW:
So, with the minutes, hours, days, months, years whatever, what's your sort of operating system as you make the most of whatever life has for you.

RAY:
Overall, I'd say, positive. I try to do the things I enjoy. I've always been a little on the cheap side, actually since last year when I went off the chemo, right before I went off the chemo, I've been to Las Vegas about five times.

ANDREW:
I hope you've won.

RAY:
I'm gonna have to quit that for awhile.

ANDREW:
But it's been okay.

RAY:
I do the kind of things I enjoy, I don't wait about when I retire I'll do this, nah, I'll go ahead and do it now. As I say I make a point to let people know, friends and family how much they mean to me.

ANDREW:
I have this image of this guy who never hugged anybody who's now open arms.

RAY:
Exactly.

ANDREW:
And Drew, have you changed at all in that way, too?

DREW:
Very definitely. I kid with people. I immediately after all this happened and decided that if I was going to survive that I needed to change my ways. I tell people well before this I was a triple A personality and now I'm back to just an A. It tends to mellow you out. It tends to give you focus, the other guys very well stated you know the feelings that I had. I think that anybody's whose listening here should definitely pick up on that. If you're gonna go back to the old ways it's gonna lead you back to the same point that you were. There are negative sides. I think it does put strains on relationships. I was married at that time but my marriage is no longer, so it's not always, you know, it's not always positive things.

ANDREW:
I want to go back to something you just said. So we have this image of Dennis going around and the storyteller and bringing the light to kids and others around, and Ray, I got this image of you, this guy hugging your friends and family and telling people how you feel about them, and Drew, you writing and going from triple-A to a single-A and being a more mellow guy. But there will be men listening who find that very difficult. They've never been that way and they're not sure they can make that change, and Drew, you just made the comment that maybe that can have you more in that kind of negative situation that, who knows, may have played a role in your health situation in the first place, or at least is not a healthy thing. What do you tell them? I mean, do you really believe, Drew that there is a negative aspect to being all bottled up inside, having dealt with the colon cancer. One of our listeners saying, "I'm not gonna talk about it and I'm just going to go back to that job, I'm gonna hit the ground running, this is in the past, and just go on." It sounds like you think that not changing somehow may be a missed opportunity and has some negative effects, even.

DREW:
I agree with that emphatically. I really believe, being a science person myself and I've kind of looked into a lot of things, and as I said, I've worked with cancer people, and I realize that there's an emotional component. And I knew in my life that it was stress that kind of pushed me over the edge, and it's not the entire thing. I really feel and as I talk with many cancer survivors, I say, listen, you can go back to that, but you're gonna push yourself right into the situation that you were once before. And to some people, they can't do it any other way, and I think some people, I may be wrong, you know would rather live life fast and furiously and then get off. And not want to change and not want to be different.

ANDREW:
It sounds like it's made a big difference for each of you and for Dennis, you with your yoga, and I think sort of getting in touch with your inner self. It sounds like there's been some real positive things going on for you.

DENNIS:
Oh, yeah, very, very much so. I'd just like to make two comments. One of the things that really surprised me in all of this is the number of people that came up and said, you know, we care about you, we've been worrying about you, we've been praying about you. And that was a big number of people, and that was very, very, very surprising to me. So when I started looking at the whole concept of what my life is impacting lots of people, and I found that stunning it first, and then I started acting on it. And so in each encounter that I have with people, I give of myself as much as I can without reservation. I spend a lot of time just kind of holding back and waiting. But now with each encounter, I have the concept that you know, this encounter may not come again. And they're gonna get all of me as long as they want it. And I found it made a big difference.

ANDREW:
I want to give each of you an opportunity to just mention some key things that you want men, who are in your age group, to remember. These are men who've maybe put the treatment for colon cancer behind them. They are now going on with their life, whether it be for the full life expectancy, or whether it's shortened at all by the disease. What are some things that you want them to think about? Ray, let me start with you. What are some key points you want to emphasize to other men?

RAY:
It's made me more aware of family and friends. If it didn't have that effect on you, then maybe you ought to go back and look at it again. Who was there when you needed them, and what were they willing to do? I was amazed at the people who came forward and offered to do whatever they could for me. People that I didn't really think I affected at all, or that barely knew my name. It's worth stopping and looking at that, and realizing what you've done, and kind of congratulating yourself maybe. I looked death in the face, and I made it.

ANDREW:
Good points. Drew, how about you? Some final thoughts you'd like to leave with our listeners?

DREW:
Well, I am a long-term survivor, so I've dealt with it from day one. Initially, I really didn't expect to be a long-term survivor, as sick as I was. I would tell men that number one, you are a cancer survivor from the moment of diagnosis all the way through. And if you do not want to be put back into the situation you potentially have been thrust through, you need to look after yourself. You need to go in for your regular checkups. When something's just not right with your body, you don't wait. You get in there and get it checked. I think it gives you the peace of mind so that you can go on with life.

ANDREW:
Good points as well. Dennis, you get the final say here. Do you have some thoughts for our listeners?

DENNIS:
Well, I would say, first of all, talk about it. It's not a secret, it's not about hiding it. It needs to be talked about, I think, for your own well-being. Discover what life is about. It's relationships. It's waking up, and seeing the sunrise, and seeing the beauty of the world.

ANDREW:
You know, Dennis, I was just going to say that this is the kind of stuff that we're not usually taught as boys. It's usually tough for men who are supposed to be tough, and don't cry, and don't hug, and yet you seem to find a real peace with being this way.

DENNIS:
Well, it took me a long time. I was raised in a big family. I had eight brothers, and two sisters, and a dad that was a tough, rough logger. I grew up that way. You know, you were tough, you were macho...and that's just horse shit. It took me a long time to really overcome that. Once in a while I still deal with it. But you discover your inner self. The phrase that I often go with for myself is, "Be still and know that I am God." You see all this beauty, and joy of just people. That's what I do with kids.

ANDREW:
Well, Dennis in Port Angeles, Washington; and Drew in Tampa, Florida; and Ray in Knoxville, Tennessee, I certainly personally want to congratulate you for everything you're doing. Thank you for participating today, and helping other men who are going through much the same situations, and giving them suggestions on ways they can move forward. Also, we want to wish you all the best with your future health. Thank you so much for sharing your personal stories. Dennis, good luck with the storytelling and the joy you bring to all those kids.

DENNIS:
Thank you.

ANDREW:
Drew, good luck to you and your work with cancer survivors in Tampa. Ray in Tennessee, thank you and we wish you all the best. If I was there in Knoxville I'd want one of those hugs from you. With that comment, we will have to end this very rewarding discussion. I want to thank each of you for sharing your very personal experiences. I know it offers great insight to others. For the American Cancer Society's Cancer Survivors' Network, and from our HealthTalk Interactive Studio in Seattle, I'm Andrew Schorr.