New perspectives strengthen understanding. That’s why I enjoyed and recommend a book by a cancer survivor with expertise in planning for the non-financial aspects of retirement. Alan Spector’s reality-hope-plan approach offers a useful way to think about your approach to Healthy Survivorship.
As Spector explains in Cancer: Balancing Reality and Hope, “Our approach…is to mindfully create and live our cancer and non-cancer plans. We’ll acknowledge and act upon the reality that is our cancer and balance that reality with hope. And we’ll balance leaning into our future while also living in the moment.” (p.112) The short, well-organized book is divided into three sections:
Reality (Ch. 1-3)
Hope (Ch. 4-7)
Planning (Ch. 8-9)
He introduces each chapter with two quotes and concludes each chapter with two questions prompting you to think about the key ideas in the context of your life. The body of each chapter comprises short, subtitled sections that separate a smorgasbord of…
Patient vignettes (his or another patient’s)
Didactic information (about cancer, treatment, healthcare)
Historical background
Insights and suggestions
The layout and subtitles make it easy to skip whichever sections don’t interest you right now, such as the backstory detours. This way, you can benefit from Spector’s practical insights and motivating mantras, such as...
Moving forward from “The reality…The hope…My hope…My pledge” (p. 105)
Thinking of “hope” as the acronym for How Ordinary People Endure (p. 63; quote from Teri Grieg, cancer survivor and endurance athlete)
Building hope depends on (1) building confidence, (2) controlling what you can; creating a plan, and (3) expecting changes and adjusting your plan (p. 63)
From Cancer: Balancing Reality and Hope, p. 63
My understanding of what hope is and how it works varies from Spector’s. He focuses solely on the relationship between hope and action. I believe some situations call for hope expressed through passive waiting, as explained in “Why Isn’t Everyone Taught About Finding Hope?”
The strength of this book is Spector’s focus on balance. Through logic and illustrative stories, he makes a convincing case for dealing with reality in hopeful ways. “It’s the balance that made the difference.”
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