How do you switch the mindset that chemo is going to help you?

Just a thought: You could try a therapist who utilizes EMDR, hynosis, Reiki, meditation and so on. Tai chi helps me with a lot of things but takes energy.

https://www.google.com/search?q=chemo+therapy+killing+cancer+video&oq=chemo+therapy+killing+cancer+video&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIJCAEQIRgKGKABMgkIAhAhGAoYoAEyCQgDECEYChigATIJCAQQIRgKGKAB0gEJMTIzODdqMGo3qAIAsAIA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:7805ecdb,vid:8aR_TFzlY2I,st:0
Not at all strange.
Start a 58 seconds. I'd change the colors the cancer shouldn't be such a pretty red color. The chemo colors are nice, I think. Then choose lively music.
Wishing you luck.

Thankyou for the responses. Need a positive spin as that infusion runs!! Need a visualization “go to”. I’m a glass half empty person and need to change to glass half full person!! 60 yrs old but trying hard to adopt a good attitude. This site helps so much!!

I don't know how to change mind set that chemotherapy won't help kill cancer. My disbelief stems from the literature the indicates my cancer is chemotherapy resistant.

My chemotherapy egiment didn't require me to stop supplements and my oncologist encourages it. I do everything i can to increase my odds of survival but in my heart don't have much faith that any of this will matter in the long run. What pisses me off is my family admonish me for speaking my beliefs so I can only really have this type of formats.

Denise, what cancer do you have? I like to think that my mind can begin to think of the people i know that have had chemo and continued to live for years even with stage 4. Herceptin for one of them she says is keeping her alive. Let u know here to understand or support you.
The whole infusion process is done for your ultimate care. I focused on the nurses caring for all of us, brought something to read, ask many questions of the RN assigned to me. They take care of patients all day, every day. They comforted me with ways to handle the effects and how to care for myself through it,
I had melphalan for my bone marrow transplant. Only one dose of that but followed by Cytoxan. With my conditioning for the transplant i had five rounds of a chemo. In a row. I had 13 rounds of chemo in late 2021.
I want to ask what is your fear? If family does not listen, come here. Places like this where we walk through fear of diagnosis and fear of treatment.
Melphalan wipes out the bone marrow. Wipes it clean so the new cells come. That chemo caused nausea that did not stop until i got the Emend pill. It works 72 hours, and it worked.
Nothing shows that i have had chemo. My health shows that so far it has worked.

With so many different types of breast cancer and treatments each person's journey is different. My journey thus far...14 years ago I was diagnosed with triple positive breast cancer. After my mastectomy the pathology report showed that my margins weren't clear and it has started to metastasize into the lymph nodes. The recommended treatment was chemo, radiation, and Herceptin. The choice was up to me to do it or not. Even though I didn't hesitate to accept the regime I was feeling anxious about the chemo. I knew I had to change my mindset and not let fear and anxiety dominate so I decided that chemo was going to be my friend. It sounds rather simplistic I know but it helped me and I had to remind myself of that as I was going through treatment. I am sending my best wishes to you on your journey.

I have mixed uterine clear cell and serous cancer. Both are aggressive and clear cell doesn't respond well to chemotherapy. I'm not afraid I'm as angry. I'm from a long lived family. The live into their late 80 some to past 100. They live with diabetes and heart issues but they are living and they are active most their life. I want that for me too.
I was 38 when my daughter was born. She is only 26. I wanted to be around to watch her flourish into middle age.

I guess if there is one fear it's dying of cancer. I seen the slow wasting. I seen how families are injured by the process of supporting someone dying. I live in a state that will prosecute people who assist in euthanasia so that will not probably be an option for me when the time comes

I do believe that my body if it's functioning well can fight off cancer, but I also have Crohn's disease. I was undiagnosed for more than a decade and I believe Crohn's and the treatment for Crohn's set me up for cancer. The question is how soon After I finish chemotherapy will the Crohn's start its act up on me?

I have a functional doctor. Only months before my cancer diagnosis we were working on identifying what contributed to me developing Crohn's. As you know the traditional medical establishment doesn't believe in root cause of disease they just use drugs to suppress symptoms so you feel better but your body isn't healed.

My hope is the functional doctor has identified the route cause and I'll be able to manage Crohn's without immunosuppressant drugs that make your body susceptible to infection including cancer.

My cell lines are rare enough that there isn't a maintenance protocol so I'll go into a trial for Herceptin as maintenance. I don't know how long that will be. Until my heart is damaged?

I don't think that being realistic about my situation will jinks me. I believe I can have the understanding that all my efforts to rid my body of cancer won't work and also know that there is a chance for cure if I do all the things. It feels like a Schrödinger’s Cat situation. I'll both alive and dead we won't know until the box is opened.

I fasted before each chemo for about 30-36 hours, and used the science of why fasting is thought to work as a visualizing.

During infusion I would see most of my cells "asleep" because they hadn't had anything but water for a day and a half, but the cancer cells were still roaming around, easy prey for the chemo.

I was young, 38, and still had 30lbs of baby weight from my newborn, so the fasying wasn't hard. one week I did get behind on my anti-constipation medicine, that was a bad week.

This helped me, plus really focusing on the fresh organic fruits and veggies and grains plus daily walks, as tools to boost my immune system as well as I could.

It led to some strange headspaces, but really helped. I remember taking a long walk after the first infusion in a curious twilight of disbelief that I had actually started that process. I was in uncharted territory - but it felt good to be doing all I could.

Also, as an aside for being "positive", I am very religious but spent most of active treatment just scream-crying at God in the car on the way home to my family, and my husband and I did a lot of post-baby put-down sobbing in the bathroom and clutching each other.

I really believe allowing ourselves to feel all the emotions of such a diagnosis, even the bad ones, helped our mental health the best. (And we both did weekly therapy and a couples with cancer zoom monthly)

Hi Neveragainvaccines,

I'm a glass half empty person too and I had chemo for breast cancer. I'm going to tell you something that might surprise you. Seeing a half empty glass is just as valid as a half full glass. You don't have to change your personality for cancer treatment. Just show up and let the doctors battle for you. Curmudgeons, depressed people and angry people as well as optimistic people go through chemo and come out the other side. I went through it kicking and screaming and I'm here to tell you that was five years ago. I'm the same person I was five years ago and I'm glad for it. I think it would be harder to change my personality than it was to just go through the chemo. Even if you think you are going to die the whole time, the chemo will be working the same way as it is for anyone else. I did find accupuncture, which was offered at the hospital helped me sleep. You can avail yourself of any of the supplemental treatments that the hospital may offer, such as reiki or massage and don't hesitate to ask to speak with a social worker or see a therapist for support but just be yourself.

That’s a good way to look at it. When I first got diagnosed I said to my Partner “I’m the worst person this could happen too….regarding my glass is half empty. Thanks for the perspective!