Essential Elements of Cancersurvivorship Care: Lifestyle

In this episode of the Cancer Survivor MD podcast series on essential elements of cancer survivorship care, Dr. Josie van Londen is joined by Brad Buchanan and Colleen Dwyer to discuss lifestyle and health behaviors as tools for coping and healing after cancer. The conversation explores how survivors often turn to diet, exercise, and other habits to regain a sense of control, while emphasizing the importance of balance rather than perfection. The group discusses practical guidance—such as starting lifestyle changes slowly, focusing on moderation and variety in diet (with some evidence supporting Mediterranean-style eating), and being cautious with unregulated supplements unless medically indicated. They also highlight how building a personal “toolkit” of coping strategies—movement, mindfulness, creative outlets, therapy, and community support—can help survivors process stress and adapt to life after treatment. Through Brad’s powerful personal story of recovery and adaptation after intensive cancer therapy, the episode underscores that healing is often gradual and individualized, and that survivors benefit from experimenting with different approaches while giving themselves time, compassion, and support along the way.

Relevant links for this episode: 

• EMDR: https://www.apa.org/topics/psychotherapy/emdr-therapy-ptsd

General Links:

• Disclaimers: https://cancersurvivormd.org/disclaimers/
• Brad Buchanan: https://linktr.ee/bradthechimera
• G [Josie] van Londen: https://linktr.ee/cancersurvivormd
• CancerBridges: https://cancerbridges.org/

Transcript

Essential Elements of Care - Lifestyle

[00:00:00] Lifestyle as a coping mechanism

[00:00:05] G van Londen (2): Hello, everybody. This is another episode of Cancer Survivor MD's podcast in the series of essential elements of cancer survivorship care. Today we will be talking about lifestyle or health behaviors with me today are Brad Buchanan and Colleen Dwyer, who you've met before.

[00:00:29] G van Londen (2): today we will be bouncing off some ideas between us about lifestyle and health behaviors, which many of you use as a coping mechanism to deal with the, stress that you've been through. With your cancer journey, it is a way to regain control because how you eat and how you move is for many of you within your control.

[00:00:56] G van Londen (2): And it can be a tool in your toolkit [00:01:00] to help you, to allow you to heal. To allow you to process what you've been through. health behaviors, what I've seen in my practice. is as I mentioned, a coping mechanism, but sometimes you might overshoot in two directions. some individuals who developed cancer and are now in the post-treatment phase, they try to really intensify their focus on health behaviors, and they may spend hours in the grocery store trying to read the nutritional labels.

[00:01:38] G van Londen (2): Uh, and figure out what is wise to buy. they may spend hours a day exercising. Some individuals may only live on lettuce, which obviously is not a healthy way to live because you need food from all food groups. some other people I've seen developed cancer despite living [00:02:00] healthy. So they might react a different way.

[00:02:03] G van Londen (2): They might say, okay, well obviously living healthy didn't really matter, so I am going to eat pizza and pancakes and french fries every day. And that's one way to react. but ideally there's some balance in how you approach this. I'm not saying you don't deserve a dessert here and there.but my goal here is to help you take some pressure off of you that you may feel to try to live perfectly, to allow yourself to live as long as possible. In terms of overall survival, in terms of your heart health outcomes, in terms of your cancer outcomes, because some cancers more than others, Cancer survival can also depend on your lifestyle.

[00:02:57] Whats the best diet or exercise for cancer survivors? 

[00:02:57] G van Londen (2): One of the questions I get asked is, [00:03:00] okay, what is the best diet? What is the best exercise for me to follow ? What I often answered, and that's still the case in 2025, is that truthfully, we don't know. What is the best diet? What is the best exercise? What are the best lifestyles for a cancer survivor?

[00:03:21] G van Londen (2): we're extrapolating that a bit from the general population, although studies are ongoing to try to figure out if survivors of specific tumor types need specific lifestyle interventions. But we're not at that level yet. And the same with diet. We don't have any studies that compared head to head, which diet is the best, we often resort with both lifestyle and diet to tell you things that are generic, but hopefully will allow you to take it from there to find your own pathway that fits with who you are.

[00:03:59] G van Londen (2): We're not [00:04:00] all. The same. And so it's all about moderation and variety and find that balance for you that works with who you are and how busy your life is. One thing to be said for a diet, however, is that there is a pretty large evidence base for the Mediterranean diet. heavily plant-based, but not only plant-based.

[00:04:26] G van Londen (2): Uh, the question is obviously whether it is that diet or whether living in the Mediterranean is playing a role too, but there's something to be said for that particular diet. But other than that moderation of your portions, variety of what you put on your plate. Not just that, but also which shops you go to is good for your soul.

[00:04:49] G van Londen (2): You discover new products, but you get also exposed to different nutritions and, there's no way around it. You're going to be exposed to some degree of toxins and [00:05:00] so. You get exposed , to different toxins because different companies have different suppliers. 

[00:05:07] G van Londen (2): Karen Kubas is a dietician that cancer bridges often utilizes, and I wonder if maybe we should have her talk. About, the Dirty Dozen and I think it's the Clean 13 in terms of organic products that I won't go into here, but maybe that's food for thought to have Karen Kubas come as a guest, but moderation and variety and start low and go slow.

[00:05:34] G van Londen (2): Just find what works for you. Hopefully that will allow you to make it sustainable for habit to change. You need to start it slow, fit it in your life, make it an existing piece that if you start low and go slow, hopefully you'll find something you enjoy and you could stick with. I guess what I want to say at the end of the day our [00:06:00]body is still a big black box. There's still a lot of things in our body that we don't understand. We know a lot, but there's still a lot we need to uncover. Yes, lifestyle can determine for some tumors more than other tumors, your recurrence risk, your survival.

[00:06:21] G van Londen (2): But at the same time, there's a lot of other things in our body that determine our outcomes that we still don't understand. And so I don't think you can tell yourself if the cancer has, should reoccur. Hopefully never, that it was because you didn't treat your body well enough. There's still too many unknowns that I don't think we can say that.

[00:06:48] Supplements

[00:06:48] G van Londen (2): Lastly, I know supplements is something that cancer survivors often resort to as well because they feel they're not eating healthy enough and they need to supplement their [00:07:00] body with over the counter supplements that are often not FDA approved.

[00:07:07] G van Londen (2): So they're not regulated in the consistency of the active ingredient. Who knows what toxins are in there in the filler, for example. We don't understand the drug drug interactions very well between supplements and your prescribed medications that you're taking,

[00:07:27] G van Londen (2): and we don't really know if it, if it works. So what I would often say is talk with your doctor before you start supplements. I tend to be conservative in terms of this aspect and better ask permission rather than forgiveness. and be open about what you're planning to do and see what your doctor tells you.

[00:07:53] G van Londen (2): In general, I would not start supplements unless we tell you to [00:08:00] start supplements based on, for example, blood values that show that you're deficient in something such as vitamin B12 or vitamin D. same with a multivitamin. Some studies in, well respected journals have showed a few years ago that taking multivitamins can make you live shorter 

[00:08:23] G van Londen (2): I would not flip out over this because this was an association and not cause and effect. That means we don't understand yet if the multivitamin causes the shorter survival. And usually healthy people don't take a multivitamin. So is it that these people lived shorter because of their underlying disease, or did the multivitamin cause any problems?

[00:08:51] G van Londen (2): Because when you think about it, 80 plus components in there at supra therapeutic dosages, maybe [00:09:00] with a carcinogenic filler, who knows what that does when you pop it in your stomach and it starts to release itself. And there's also some studies that show that antioxidants actually help the tumor cells.

[00:09:14] G van Londen (2): I'm not saying this to scare you. I'm saying this for you to think about the pros and the cons and the fact that these supplements may not necessarily help and they may possibly cause harm. So please, before you start any supplements, talk with your doctor.

[00:09:33] Ask for help

[00:09:33] G van Londen (2): And I forgot one more thing. If you would like to have any help with any of these items,, whether it's exercise or nutrition, you need to please tell your providers that you would like some help. Many cancer centers have nutritionists or dieticians around, if not, they're available elsewhere that you provider those where to refer you to. And there [00:10:00] are, prescribed services such as occupational therapy, physical therapy, speech therapy and exercise physiologist who can help you regain the deficits that you may have developed after your cancer therapy. So hopefully you will regain the confidence to start or renew your exercise regimen, and then you can continue on your own and or receive help from a personal trainer, ideally, somebody who's cancer certified and.

[00:10:34] G van Londen (2): Maybe we should ask Janette, who is the cancer certified personal trainer at Cancer Bridges, to join us for one of these sessions because she's a wealth of wisdom. 

[00:10:46] G van Londen (2): Thank you.

[00:10:47] Creating a toolkit

[00:10:47] Colleen Dwyer: Thanks, Josie. It's a pleasure to be here with you, Brad, and Dr. Josie. Um, I'm just thinking about, you know, some of the things that you just said [00:11:00] and, um, the theme lifestyle and healthy behaviors today. I do think, like you said, the number one thing is finding the balance. some of it is just getting back to exercise and movement or whatever it might be, but I think these can be very important pieces of that, healing process to move forward.

[00:11:23] Colleen Dwyer: we talk a lot at living life post-cancer treatment about creating a toolkit that You can tap into and, and this seems to be very helpful for people. It can be a bit of a distraction, but it can also be something that you are doing to wrap your head around everything that's happened and how to move forward.

[00:11:42] Colleen Dwyer: So to have a toolkit of, different resources, maybe just like Dr. Josie mentioned with, what's offered in your community? Where can you tap into some of these different behaviors or options that are offered. I think though, it is really [00:12:00] important to think about starting slow because you're healing and so you need some time to recover and you don't wanna add too much to your plate because then that becomes overwhelming.

[00:12:13] Colleen Dwyer: a little bit at a time. And if you can work with somebody to do some exercise and movement or talk with a dietician about the right foods to be eating for you, depending on what your diagnosis or your tumor was, I think that's also really helpful.

[00:12:28] Colleen Dwyer: And I think also the education around it, just learning can be something that some people find interesting and knowledge is power. So learning more about that can help you to just understand. and sometimes that's a good thing. I also think it's important to have different

[00:12:48] Colleen Dwyer: outlets. what do you do to have fun? What, what type of things did you do maybe previously and you got away from, and now it's time to get back to some of those things. [00:13:00] Or maybe it's trying something completely new, putting yourself out there which can be hard and a little scary, but, trying something that you've never done.

[00:13:07] Colleen Dwyer: I know here at Cancer Bridges we offer a lot of different. If it's a writing class or some sort of, um, expressive outlet where you have the ability to create something. And a lot of times people will say, I never did this before. Or I, I don't, I'm not a very good drawer. Or I can't sew, or, that's okay.

[00:13:29] Colleen Dwyer: it's just about, really trying something different, maybe taking your mind off of it, meeting somebody else, making that connection. And it doesn't have to be at a cancer nonprofit. It can be at your, library where there's a book club or your church where there's a spiritual group, whatever.

[00:13:45] Colleen Dwyer: just finding some of those opportunities to enjoy life and have fun. I think that's all really important and part of this process of getting back to living the way that you want to. I think also [00:14:00] mindfulness and meditation is something that people tend to find very helpful. whether you do it through an app and Dr. Josie just mentioned, you know, maybe you're listening to this and trying to fall asleep. So maybe you tap into some of those different meditation, apps that are out there. I know a lot of people use them to help themselves get to sleep or fall back asleep. I know sometimes they're really helpful when you go in for scans.

[00:14:25] Colleen Dwyer: So, one thing I would encourage you to do is to try to do that before, like, practice it. we often talk about how it's a muscle that you need to strengthen. So I think all of these behaviors lifestyles. It, it's all part of your tool kit, but it's things that you need to practice and have tried before.

[00:14:51] Colleen Dwyer: You know, maybe there is an upcoming scan you're worried about. Well make sure maybe you try to practice those things before it actually happens so that when you go in for that scan, you've [00:15:00] been meditating or you've been listening to some of the apps. That way you've had some experience and it's not the first time you're trying, 'cause it's not always that simple.

[00:15:09] Stressing about stress

[00:15:09] G van Londen (2): I like how, You tie it together because I think I've been walking around it. The elephant in the room is stress. Yeah. we impose a lot of stress on ourselves to try to resume your life after it was put on hold by the cancer treatments. And, we put a lot of stress on ourselves to live as healthy as we can.

[00:15:34] G van Londen (2): Then we know that stress is not healthy. So then we're stressing about the fact that we're stressing, which doesn't help, and at the same time we're learning that some degree of stress maybe is good. It keeps us going. Mm-hmm. It motivates us. But it's all about balance. So if you notice that you feel you have more stress [00:16:00]than is good for you, it starts to upset you, blood pressure measurements are too high, you're not sleeping, you know when you're too stressed. Then maybe it's good to go into some of these tools, that we talked about. but this whole episode is about you ironically, taking control of your stress,

[00:16:25] The recovery journey

[00:16:25] Colleen Dwyer: right?

[00:16:26] Colleen Dwyer: I think it's there. So it's finding ways, and it might be different ways than it was prior to your cancer experience. maybe you have to try some new things because What you'd used before is not working and you just have to, see what else is out there and that's okay.

[00:16:41] Colleen Dwyer: Uh, that, that actually might be kind of neat. And I talk to a lot of people who, when they do try something, it's like, oh, wow, I didn't realize that this could help me like it is. and sometimes it's multiple things that you have to try to actually find the thing that's a fit for you.

[00:16:57] Colleen Dwyer: I even say that about support groups. [00:17:00] Sometimes it takes two or three, four times before you find a group that fits for you. It, it just depends. So don't give up on it. You know, keep at it because there are things out there and it also might be an expansion of the things that you did previously. A lot of times we will, ask about journaling.

[00:17:20] Colleen Dwyer: That's something that people sometimes do through their cancer experience and then they get into the treatment and it just becomes too much, or they forget about it, and then we talk about it at post-treatment. Then they're like, oh yeah, that was something that was helpful for me.

[00:17:36] Colleen Dwyer: And then they get back to it and they're like, oh, that, that's, you know, just to get that what's on your mind out somehow and put it down and put it away maybe, or rip it up, whatever, whatever it is that you want to do with that. it's a release, it's an outlet.

[00:17:51] Colleen Dwyer: So, yeah, I do think, like you said, Dr. Josie, it is important to, do this slow. You are not gonna be a pro at this the [00:18:00] first time you try. it's process. 

[00:18:02] G van Londen (2): Thank you. It's a journey. Thank you, Colleen. Uh, Brad, did you wanna say something ? 

[00:18:08] Coping strategies may change over time

[00:18:08] Brad Buchanan: Well, yeah, I think a lot depends on what stage people are at.

[00:18:13] Brad Buchanan: my first kind of coping strategy, I suppose, was writing, you know, as I was diagnosed and had to learn all this language, the cancer language is terrifying. So I was writing poems about the new words, I was learning for all the things that were wrong with me or could have been wrong with me, and that it helped quite a bit, in the beginning phases of, my treatment. But, I had to overcome a lot of, psychological aversion, to cancer. So, when I became clear that I was gonna need chemotherapy and To have a Hickman line implanted in my body. that thought made me absolutely, ill, it made me very [00:19:00] nauseous and I'm squeamish at the best of times, and this was not the best of times.

[00:19:05] Brad Buchanan: So, I had to go talk to a therapist and say, here's what's happening. I need to find a way to. accept that this horrible, looking device is gonna be now part of my body. And, we talked about that. And I finally got to the point where I, was able to, when emergency hit and it became clear that, I needed one of those, in the hospital, I was at least intellectually prepared for that fact.

[00:19:33] Brad Buchanan: Then as I went through my cancer treatments, I wrote again, quite a bit about it. I tried to stay physically active as long as I could. walking mainly after a few rounds of chemotherapy, it became clear I wasn't gonna be able to run or play soccer again. so I tried walking quite a bit.

[00:19:52] Brad Buchanan: I tried biking. Because I mean, yeah, everyone says that exercise is really important, as far [00:20:00] as going into your cancer treatments in good shape and trying to come out of them, in okay shape. I don't know if the wisdom has changed in the, years, that have passed, but that's my sense, 

[00:20:14] Brad Buchanan: Psychological health also depends on pretty good physical levels of, activity. but then after my transplant when everything just kind of went completely sideways and I was essentially bedridden for, weeks, at a time. Was let out of the hospital with very little mobility.

[00:20:35] Brad Buchanan: I'd lost most of my usable vision. and I had really bad medical trauma to process and that was a whole other set of coping strategies that had to kick in there. I did go back to a therapist at that time to try to reprocess my medical trauma. We did some exercises with, EMDR, and, bilateral stimulation where the therapist kind of played music that was [00:21:00] supposed to reach both sides of my brain, I suppose.

[00:21:03] Brad Buchanan: We did some eye exercises, Just taking the time to talk through the trauma that had happened. And, you know, the near death experiences that I had gone through, it felt very important to me in that moment,

[00:21:19] Brad Buchanan: because I was also in a space at that point where I just, I couldn't even write anything about what I'd been through. people were asking me, well, gee, you're a writer. What have you got to say about this? and I was like, well, I really have only three words that I can use to describe my time in the transplant unit when I was, close to dying.

[00:21:38] Brad Buchanan: and I said those three words are crouched over darkness. That's all I could say. That's where I was. That was sort of my physical posture. and my sense of hovering over some abyss that I was just trying not to fall into. And, it took a lot of, therapy.

[00:21:55] Brad Buchanan: Also my body was so messed up.

[00:21:58] Brad Buchanan: I felt like I was a [00:22:00] series of body parts, poorly connected, sort of Frankenstein's monster. A lot of people expressed this after A stem cell transplant, they feel like their bodies are no longer really their own. They're not, they don't feel at home in their bodies anymore. and that's certainly how I felt.

[00:22:16] Brad Buchanan: at first I got very gentle massages 'cause I was told to avoid deep tissue massage. I still had a medical device in my body for one thing. I'd go in for, photophoresis treatments fairly often. So anyway, it was, they called it oncology massage, which basically a technical way of saying like, very gentle massages.

[00:22:36] Brad Buchanan: that kind of helped a little bit to knit the pieces back together so that I felt like I was. getting closer to being a single, unified body again. eventually I was given the go ahead to get more kind of aggressive massages, for lack of a better term, and those really helped, 

[00:22:58] Brad Buchanan: my shoulders were all [00:23:00] banged up from. trying to sleep in the hospital. 'cause I could only sleep on my side it seemed. And so my shoulders were hunched forward in a really uncomfortable way. the more aggressive massages kind of repositioned my shoulders a little bit so that my posture was generally better.

[00:23:18] Recovery takes time

[00:23:18] Brad Buchanan: I could go on and on with all the things that I did over the last nine years to try to enhance my wellness, and kind of undo some of the physical trauma, mental trauma, emotional trauma. And I finally did start writing again, after I'd processed some of that. But, it was a lot of working around the edges of a pretty deep, wound, in my being.

[00:23:43] Brad Buchanan: That was just gonna take a lot of time to, to sort out. And so yeah, my exercise regimen had gone from, you know, before my transplant, like biking, walking pretty vigorously, [00:24:00] to can I walk across the room and back with help from like one of my parents or my, nurse. Walking around the block when I got home, like walking around the block with my white cane with someone on my arm was, was quite an achievement.

[00:24:17] Brad Buchanan: And eventually I got to the point where I could go for walks by myself. And so I did and then went for longer walks by myself, and soon enough I was, traipsing around Sacramento with my white cane, more or less going about my business as a functional blind person. gradually building back strength and balance and coordination.

[00:24:39] Brad Buchanan: it was a very slow process. And so once I got sort of stable I suppose, and regained my vision, I could start biking again, which I've been doing pretty constantly. The aggressive massages have helped. And I've also recently made a major dietary change where [00:25:00] I've tried to go gluten-free and lactose-free and followed a diet.

[00:25:06] Brad Buchanan: it's called the low FODMAP diet. it's sort of anti-inflammatory. because most of my residual graft versus host disease symptoms seem to be in my stomach. So I still have a lot of gastrointestinal issues, and pain. I still have chronic stomach pain, but the new diet has kind of helped to tamp that down a bit.

[00:25:29] Brad Buchanan: So I don't take as many painkillers any longer. but it's still kind of a work in progress as far as that goes. there's a lot of stuff around the edges. You know, I tried going to physical therapy sessions, but frankly they were very challenging to get to at first, and you'd get maybe 15 minutes with a therapist. So that was almost more trouble than it was worth, to be honest with you. so it was just kind of like, what can I do in my new life post-cancer?

[00:25:57] Brad Buchanan: And at first it was very [00:26:00] little and then it started to just grow slowly. until now where I'm pretty much, I, you know, I'm still technically disabled and I still have lots of challenges physically, but, I'm, functional and getting my vision back, of course, after four eye surgeries was very helpful in that regard.

[00:26:18] Brad Buchanan: I really think it depends on what kind of shape you're in after cancer and after your cancer treatments have chewed you up and spit you out on the other end. and what kind of support systems you have in place? I was lucky. I had a pretty good support system, family wise, insurance wise and so forth, but it was still a very long and pretty painful process of a recovery, that is still really ongoing. but, yeah, I, I went in to cancer in the best shape of my life and then, probably needed all of that to just, to survive. And then survival itself was, you know, all I could really bring into my new life after cancer.

[00:27:00] Sharing experiences

[00:27:00] Brad Buchanan: So that's the. You might want to edit some of this out, Josie.

[00:27:05] Brad Buchanan: 'cause it's sort of a long Jeremiah ad of, uh, you know, of, of things, challenges, and, um, a very slow recovery that really, you know, it, it's short on inspiration and short on information, I suppose for other people. 'cause my case was very unique, right? Like I had an unusually difficult cancer diagnosis and then an unusually bad experience with a stem cell transplant.

[00:27:32] G van Londen (2): Uh, yes and no. Uh, so what I was going to reflect on were two observations. One is that you've been very creative in pivoting and adapting and working around whatever's going on at that moment, which illustrates what Colleen was hinting on. So I think it's very illustrative what you just shared with us.

[00:27:57] G van Londen (2): And second of all, I think. [00:28:00] Your demeanor today and your word choice is very, reflective of the fact that you obviously have been traumatized medically speaking. And I'm hoping that we didn't trigger you more than you needed to. 

[00:28:19] Brad Buchanan: Well, no, that's okay. I, I, um, you know, I, I really don't mind talking about it, but yeah, it's just a very complicated subject. For me.

[00:28:28] Brad Buchanan: Yes. You know, goes back a long way. You know, we're talking about 10 years of my life. more than 10 years really with the precancer, you know, when I knew something was wrong with me, didn't know what it was going on, but, felt like I needed to get into the best shape I could to deal with whatever, diagnosis and treatments ultimately ended up coming my way.

[00:28:50] Brad Buchanan: The common thread is, exercise, mental, physical, whatever you can do, you should do is what I would [00:29:00] take from all of that. 

[00:29:01] Bone health

[00:29:01] Brad Buchanan: I hate lifting weights, but I do it every single day because I know I need to keep building my bone density back. 'cause I was diagnosed with, osteopenia after my transplant.

[00:29:12] Brad Buchanan: so they had me on supplements for that. But they also said you need to do weight bearing exercise. 'cause osteopenia is just one grade below osteoporosis where your bones are really fragile and you're in danger of breaking, hips and so forth from falls. And I certainly didn't want to go into that world.

[00:29:30] Brad Buchanan: so I started taking more calcium, magnesium, vitamin D , I suppose. I even had, a treatment called Reclast where they. infused me with something to help my bone density again. but that's something you can recover it. It turns out you can rebuild your bone density, which is good news. that was one aspect of my recovery that I didn't talk about the first time through was, the residual damage, of taking so many steroids.

[00:29:57] Brad Buchanan: Like I was on such high doses of Prednisone [00:30:00] for so long. Inevitably my bone density was, was badly affected, and there may have been other things that they gave me too that reduced my bone density. But, as far as I know, prednisone is the chief culprit in that regard.

[00:30:12] Brad Buchanan: you're right, depending on the circumstances, in terms of what make you lose prematurely and which treatment you can be. treated with, because some medications have, contraindications, your bone health is able to be, recoverable if that is a word. 

[00:30:33] EMDR

[00:30:33] G van Londen (2): the other thing I thought was interesting that I thought maybe we should spend a bit on it.

[00:30:39] G van Londen (2): You used the technique, EMDR, , which stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing 

[00:30:49] G van Londen (2): so, what it, what it does in people who are traumatized, it helps individuals

[00:30:57] G van Londen (2): be less triggered [00:31:00] moving forward, when they're exposed to possible triggers, which is a very vague explanation. I'm not an expert. There's quite some evidence for the fact that it helps, and I will put a link in the show notes for individuals who want to read more about it. it's evidence-based and it's covered by insurance.

[00:31:23] Brad Buchanan: Yeah. You know, I often would just sort of walk around with, music. Like you can get special EMDR, or I think it's also called Bilateral Stimulation music, that goes in both ears and it's a very pleasurable thing actually, but it also just kind of relaxed me to the point where I could have.

[00:31:43] Brad Buchanan: pretty profound conversations with my therapist about death and dying and, sort of realize, I don't know, it felt important to me to accept the fact that, I had come close to death and that one day [00:32:00] I would in fact die. And, just to have the conversation where. I think at one point we discussed where is your best, death?

[00:32:11] Brad Buchanan: Like where do you want to be when you die? And I said, I want to be in a hospital room because it's, I know it's okay to die there because I almost died there already. for me in that moment. it got me to the point where I was

[00:32:25] Brad Buchanan: able to be emotionally honest about my situation and also to acknowledge that survival has actually been pretty painful, that it would've been maybe easier to die. And that, the responsibilities of continuing to live and recover and so forth are often really honorous, um, for people who've been through that sort of trauma.

[00:32:49] Brad Buchanan: there might be part of me that wished that I had died, and that was really hard to express in any other way. but in that setting, it [00:33:00] felt okay to acknowledge that, you know, survival was really hard. You know, being a cancer survivor is a thankless job.

[00:33:09] Brad Buchanan: that's what EMDR got me to kind of, accept is that, you know, that survival wasn't an unmixed blessing, you know, that I couldn't just go around feeling grateful to survive all the time. and it was, he actually healthier to say, yeah, you know, it would've been okay to die there.

[00:33:28] Brad Buchanan: And if I'm back there dying, that will also be okay. and that's, you know, actually that's the, that's the first thing I tell people. If, you know, they come to me with a cancer diagnosis, I just say, well, you need to accept, you have a radical acceptance of the fact that you're pretty likely to die of this.

[00:33:46] Brad Buchanan: Come to terms with that, you know, make peace with that now, don't wait, you know, later on, I don't know if I would've gotten to that point without the EMDR and the, that particular [00:34:00] therapy in that moment. Um, and just to make the trauma a little more specific. Like, I would go to the barbershop to get

[00:34:11] Brad Buchanan: my haircut and my beard trimmed. 'cause I being blind at the time, I really couldn't do a good job anymore. But it was a real challenge to sit there and let the barber touch my head because I would flinch every single time they came at me with, you know, Clippers, scissors, just to, you know, wipe my neck down or something with the cloth that they would use.

[00:34:33] Brad Buchanan: I'd be like, flinching because I couldn't stand being touched, which does a lot, you know, that really doesn't help your relationship either if you're physically, kind of recoiling from any physical contact with anybody. So that was a pretty, difficult trauma to overcome, at least in the short term.

[00:34:56] Brad Buchanan: So, what are the symptoms of that kind of medical [00:35:00] trauma? it's being afraid to be touched, by anybody essentially. 

[00:35:06] G van Londen (2): Thank you, Brad, for trusting us we're almost at the end of the hour, I wanted to see if Colleen had any final reflections.

[00:35:14] Colleen Dwyer: Well, I just think the sharing of your story there, Brad, is an example of the process that it takes. You know, you started off by saying that you started writing and then you stopped, but now you're back to writing. But it took a while to get there. Sounds like you tried so many different things, and as you were trying those things, you were processing all that had happened.

[00:35:39] Colleen Dwyer: So I think that was a really good example of how this can kind of work. but you stuck with it and you're still figuring it out in some sense. But, thank you for sharing that example. 

[00:35:52] Brad Buchanan: I am still figuring it out and, you know, I do workshops with blind writers, and I tell them, you know, I still feel like my [00:36:00] blindness has something to teach me, even though I'm no longer visually impaired.

[00:36:04] Brad Buchanan: the way I adapted to my blindness was, like, and most of them are, do much better with adapting. 'cause I didn't really manage to use any technology when I was blind. When I tried to write as a blind person, I basically used a big marker on a full sheet of paper and would write maybe six words to a page and then give it to a college kid.

[00:36:28] Brad Buchanan: I paid 20 bucks an hour to transcribe it onto the computer so that I could eventually write a poem while still blind, but that took a long time To do anyway. And I needed to be patient to recover enough vision to even see that I had written something on the page. But yeah, eventually I got back to writing.

[00:36:45] Brad Buchanan: And that's kind of the coping strategy that I still use today. The most often. that's the one that's the most rewarding. but I still get massages, that's for darn sure. Mm-hmm. and I'm happy to stay for longer than the hour, by the way, If people [00:37:00] want to do that. I don't know what your schedule is like Colleen or Josie.

[00:37:05] G van Londen (2): I think we have about an 45 minute episode and I think, yes, we can cover more, but I think maybe if everybody here is okay with it, we'll throw that in the next episodes.

[00:37:17] G van Londen (2): This topic is immense. But I think we did a good, good first try and we'll see what people tell us what they would like to hear more about. For the listeners, I also wanted to, comment that in the show notes, there is a link to Brad's website and you can find

[00:37:35] G van Londen (2): all his poetry books that he wrote about his cancer journey there. it's very inspiring and it may be cathartic and healing for many of you if you respond to poetry. I wanted to thank Colleen, and I wanted to thank Brad for being on here.

[00:37:51] G van Londen (2): Thank you. 

[00:37:52] Brad Buchanan: Thank you, Josie. Thank you, Colleen. 

[00:37:54] Colleen Dwyer: Thank you both. Thanks for having me on here. It's a pleasure to spend some time with you this [00:38:00] afternoon.