By Susan Gubar — 2020
Cancer patients deal daily with dread stirred by organisms produced by the body they attack.
Read on www.nytimes.com
CLEAR ALL
Adults with disabilities report experiencing frequent mental distress almost 5 times as often as adults without disabilities.
1
When Robert Bruce, of El Dorado, Calif., was diagnosed in March 2011 with stage-4 melanoma, he already had tumors on his head, lungs, ribs and lymph nodes. Bruce said his cancer wasn’t a case of his body betraying him, but actually the reverse: “I betrayed my own body.”
Mary Dawson, 72, has been living with kidney cancer now for more than a decade, which may have been avoided if it was caught earlier
Just as cancer affects your physical health, it can bring up a wide range of feelings you’re not used to dealing with. It can also make existing feelings seem more intense. They may change daily, hourly, or even minute to minute.
The pandemic has stripped our emotional reserves even further, laying bare our unique physical, social, and emotional vulnerabilities.
According to the Center for Disease Control, 80% of visits to the doctor are believed to be stress-related. Yet what is “stress” if not fear, anxiety, and worry dressed up in more socially acceptable clothing?