I make name tag buttons that say “I CONTRADANCE” at the top and “FOR HEALTH & FUN” at the bottom, putting “health” before “fun”. I have personally found via my two cancers the health benefits of contradance. I’m attempting to raise the awareness level of the health benefits so there will be more people involved in the dance, not just for the fun but also knowing that they’re truly helping themselves. It also will help ensure the continuation of the contra dance. That means more of us will be in the win-win.
The “CCC” stands for Celebrate Crushing Cancer.
In January, 2017, I was diagnosed with prostate cancer, Gleason Scores of 4 + 3 = 7 and 3 + 4 = 7. I looked at various treatment options including alternate methods and read the book RADICAL REMISSION by Kelly A. Turner, PhD. The book is a worldwide study of data and interviews with terminal cancer patients who continued to live. She identified nine factors as to why they continued to live:
- Radically changing your diet
- Taking control of your health
- Following your intuition
- Using herbs and supplements
- Releasing suppressed emotions
- Increasing positive emotions
- Embracing social support
- Deepening your spiritual connections
- Having strong reasons for living
- In more recent years, exercise has been added to the list of the original nine factors.
Over a 3-month period I tried to implement as much of the nine factors in my lifestyle change as I could. And I’ve seen that many of the aspects of contradance address and/or satisfy the majority of those factors. At the end of the 3-month period my PSA reading had come down insignificantly, but it had not risen as it had been doing. With that information I went ahead with radiation treatment. But it was evident that the lifestyle change had been exceptionally beneficial.
Beginning as early as 2020 there seemed to be a degradation in my health which during 2021-22 manifested itself in very severe loss of strength and stamina, excessive sleep, loss of weight and some loss of cognitive abilities. Many tests were done over that time period. March 30th, 2023, a lymph node was removed and examined and final pathology report included Epstein-Barr virus positive malignant lymphoma with increased large cells, diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. The prostate cancer was pretty much isolated to one small area and I had never understood why it don’t spread more quickly to other areas. But here now was a cancer well outside a small area, it was in my lymph system.
I questioned “why should I have this new cancer if I had continued to follow the lifestyle change”? Upon reflection I observed an increase in my stressors, both personally and outside my control. Also, due to the Covid pandemic, I had lost a lot of positive lifestyle change options since dancing was suspended. It was exceptionally interesting that 8 months before I got my “living-death” [that’s what it felt like over several years] lymphoma diagnosis I had struggled back to the return of contra in the local area in August, 2022. It was difficult keeping my balance when walking on the uneven stones leading to the church/dance hall and did fall a couple of times dancing. But with the passing months I did detect a very slight improvement in my being for about a week after each dance. My regret is that I failed to somehow measure my improvement of strength and stamina via a quantifiable metric like walking pace. In January-February, 2023, I did some PT to help improve my balance and walk. But I felt the real change by dancing.
For me, supporting contradance is like a direct benefit insurance policy on my lifestyle and my health. The more people dancing, the more there is opportunity for me to dance and the more people who recognize dance is healthy in addition to fun, the more there is for all of us and all are helped. The button is an effort to get out the word on healthy aspects of contradance.