Mumbo Jumbo?

I used to think that Hypnosis was just that Mumbo Jumbo - I'm the sceptic (not septic) and the enemy of Snake Oil and all that stuff but I did go for Hypnosis and for me it did work. I was a bit tense the first time and a bit worried about it. I needn't have been and it worked really well on tackling some of the very serious anxieties I used to have going into Hospital. My blood pressure would go through the roof (it still goes up but not as much) and I'd be in pieces. Fears from my childhood of painful procedures, being wired up for days to rigid bits of kit and spending days recuperating at home made for me, after 11 or so operations, with up to a month off on each occasion have a childhood and education interrupted by what today are minor procedures.

Steve in his excellent Got Bladder Cancer Blog advocates using a breathing technique SEE HERE

I use something similar to the second technique:

1. Find a little space preferably where you are not disturbed
2. Get comfortable
3. Long slow deep breath, hold for mental count of 4 as you exhale slowly close your eyes
4. Silent mental count 1 to 10. Count each number as you breathe out. Between each breath say to yourself "one..Deeper Relaxed..Two..Deeper Relaxed.." etc
5. By the time you reach the number 10 you can go deeper by visualising:

• Counting again from one to ten
• Going down one escalator after another
• A beautiful spot in nature, noticing the sights, sounds and smells (or somewhere you feel at ease)
• Skiing down a mountain
• Walking downstairs
• Swimming in the sea or lying on a sunny beach
• Floating gently on a cloud

When you are at a level of trance at which you feel comfortable, give yourself positive suggestions. Give each suggestion at least 10 times - be passionate about it; feel it, believe it

Emerge yourself silently and mentally by counting from Ten up to One and then open your eyes. As you are emerging yourself, give yourself suggestions that you will emerge "full of confidence, energy and vitality for the rest that you have just had, feeling marvellous in every way"

The suggestions I was given are below:

Every day in every way I am getting better and better
I am in control, I create my own reality
Negative thoughts have no power over me, I am in control
I create my own reality through the power of my mind and this is so
I persistently think and act in the direction of my good and my goal; to be a happy, healthy, relaxed person
I am love. I am loving, loved and beloved
I am healed by the Creative Force within me
My body knows just how to keep me well and I pay close attention to its signals. I obey those signals, I relax, I let go and stay well
My body systems are co-operating with the surgical procedure, we are all working together to create healing
My blood pressure is normal and will stay that way
My lungs breathe easily and effortlessly
Every day in every way I am getting better and better.

Now - you may think it is all Mumbo Jumbo but for me - it worked really well and this, together with music (all types work for me although thrash and heavy rock don't really soothe the mind in a Hospital - they are OK post Op though) help me to calm down. I can take myself into Hospital and not need anyone with me anymore and I can and have managed to see off the 3 previous lots of biopsies and 2 previous TURBTs plus 24 BCGs this will make 6 visits for General Anaesthetic procedures on me in 2 1/2 years. Sure - no one likes it but if you can control yourself then you begin to get to the purpose of what this is all about. It is about curing you and making you better. Sometimes it doesn't feel like that and yet at the end of the day it IS what this is all about.

How can I be of a cheery disposition and (normally) be positive? I often consider this to be a number of things:

• A wake up call
• A blessing (perhaps not quite the right word)
• A turning point
• Time to reappraise what IS important

I wouldn't say that you get some sort of deep and meaningful religious insight or suddenly the meaning of life pops out and bites your bum or anything but you do start to see things in a different light. Seeing the operations as steps to getting better and the treatments, which are challenging to say the least, aren't there to be horrible or to hurt you they do actually make you fight and get rid of (to a great extent) your Cancer. You just have to mend your thought processes around to the positives in all the horrors that are done to you. I still subscribe to the old adage that there are people far worse off than you and that I am lucky to live somewhere that not only has the ability to cure me but has the staff, resources and know how to make it happen. In some places in the world, I'd be dead by now, that is why I shouldn't be angry anymore about having got cancer and that is why I should be positive all the time.