Take a Break from Cancer Overload

A male breast cancer survivor offers some alternatives to stress.

BY Khevin Barnes

PUBLISHED January 13, 2018

Khevin Barnes is a Male Breast Cancer survivor, magician and speaker. He is currently writing, composing and producing a comedy stage musical about Male Breast Cancer Awareness. He travels wherever he is invited to speak to (and do a little magic for) men and women about breast cancer. www.BreastCancerSpeaker.com www.MaleBreastCancerSurvivor.com

I think about my breast cancer every day. It's not because I want to. But more often than not, the discomfort of the mastectomy scar that divides my left breast is problematic, and of course the bathroom mirror never tells a lie.

But I also think about music and writing and nature and my cats and riding my bicycle in the lovely Sonoran Desert.

These are positive images that give me great pleasure and purpose in my life. And these are a few of the things that offer me a "break" from the stress of my life with cancer. Now that three years have passed since my original diagnosis, I try to include my cancer thoughts in the line-up of positive images I have about my life each day. But how do we think positively about our cancer?

My brain tells me that I have cancer, but my heart reminds me that I am alive, reasonably pain-free and as far as I know, still earning the title of “no evidence of disease.” There's no easy or even dependable way to regulate those thoughts that race through our heads, but I've found both meditation and positive imagery exercises to be quite helpful.

Part of my willingness to examine and allow thoughts about cancer to come and go as they please is based on the fact that I made a decision early on to meet my male breast cancer face-to-face by dedicating some time to be of service to other cancer survivors, and by accepting that a life with cancer is still a life to be lived and treasured.

Read More: