“You can make your own reality.” That’s Olivia Newton-John’s message to the world about dealing with cancer.
“I kinda consider I’ve had a gift of extra time. I’ve lost people younger than me,” says Newton-John in a new interview. “So I’m very grateful. I’m 70 and I’ve had the most amazing life, and I have extra time. So, whatever that is, I’m grateful for it, and I’ll just enjoy every day, and that’s all you can do,” she says.
Read MoreBut she also talks about the choices you can make when dealing with that emotion. “Winning over. I think what you think creates your reality. So that’s a decision, you have to make that decision. You know you can be a victim, or you can be a winner and enjoy your life. It hasn’t been easy, of course. I mean I’m human and I go through fear and I go through all the things anyone going through or any other difficult diagnosis [does]. But it’s a choice of how you deal with it. So I try to always deal with it in a positive way.”
It’s important to know that the best thing to do about fear and anxiety during breast cancer, according to Dr. Susan Parsons, Director of Survivorship Care at Tufts Medical Center, is to let yourself feel them. “The advice I would give to someone who has just received a cancer diagnosis is to find people who they find to be a source of support, to allow themselves to go through all the different emotional reactions to that news — the anger, the frustration, the fear, the disappointment, whatever those emotions are — figure out whats important to you and find those people that can help you realize that,” says Dr. Parsons.
“If women are not afraid, I’m more worried about them. If they come to me and say ‘I got this. Cancer, no problem. You know, chemo. When’s my first date? I’m gonna get my blood checked, I’m good to go–‘ I have patients like that. They worry me, because it has to come out at some point unless they’re robots,” says Dr. Elizabeth Comen, Medical Oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.. “So I think the first step is really validating whatever emotions that they have. It may not just be fear, they may just be really angry. really, you know, “bleep bleep bleep” angry. I’d rather a woman be terrified sitting in my office, than terrified and at home, not getting a mammogram. Because sometimes the fear is so great that people will ignore symptoms.”
Dr. Elizabeth Comen On Handling Fear After A Breast Cancer Diagnosis
By welcoming the fear, Dr. Comen says that a good doctor can start to tease out what that fear really comes from. “The fear doesn’t scare me, I welcome the fear because once we know that they’re afraid, then we can help tease out what are they really afraid of, and I think a good doctor takes the time to flesh that out,” she says.
Olivia Newton-John’s memoir, which includes her cancer diagnoses, emerged when she learned they were going to make a movie of her life, she says. “I didn’t plan on writing a book, but then when I heard they were planning on making a movie about my life, I thought well I’m just going to write my version so that if they come out with anything that isn’t right or true I have my own version. That was the inspiration. And then when I actually got going with it was quite an interesting and cathartic experience for me.”
When asked why she didn’t share her initial diagnosis with the public, Newton-John says it was simply a personal decision. “Because of the speculation, which happened the third time. So I just decided I wanted to go through it myself. I don’t know, it was just a decision that I’d keep it to myself that time.”
But she also says that when the rumors got started after her second diagnosis, she wanted to let her friends around the world know the truth. “They were telling me I was dying and I thought, ‘well I don’t feel like it, I feel pretty good,’ but you know rumors start and then it gets out of control and I decided no I’m going to come out and talk about it because I have many friends and family all around the world and I can’t call everyone so I need to let them know I’m okay.”
Newton-John talks about spending time at the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Center in Melbourne Australia, which she helped raise funds to build in 2008. “I got to spend the first month of that treatment in my own center, which was just the most wonderful gift I can imagine,” says Newton-John. “I was in disguise all the time. I had a beanie on, glasses, and I wore a surgical mask. And it was really kind of interesting to be unnoticed. And I was just one of the patients shuffling around in my gown and hoping the back wasn’t open like Jack Nicholson in the movie.”
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