‘Don’t hide fear’: how cancer survivor managed negative emotions and diet to beat illness – twice
- Cancer survivor Denise Tam, 36, tells how she overcame her fears about the disease and how a change in mindset made her immune system more resilient
- Research has shown negative emotions can have health consequences for your body as well as your mind
Having conquered cancer twice, Denise Tam does not take the immune system – the “bodyguard” that repairs your body and shields it against viruses and diseases – for granted.
Tam has learned much about overcoming challenges since 2009, including a stage-four lymphoma diagnosis, a cancer that begins in the immune system’s infection-fighting cells called lymphocytes.
Tam was a 26-year-old journalist in Beijing when she got the news, and moved back to Hong Kong to be with her family while getting treatment. She admits she hadn’t listened to her body.
“For example, having a few swollen lymph nodes and gaining weight … at 26, [I] didn’t go see a doctor,” she recalls. A routine health check involving blood work eventually revealed her critical condition.
Tam did a lot of research on health and nutrition and all the steps she could take to make her body strong. She learned to choose foods that heal rather than harm. She gave up meat, which is known to be riddled with hormones and antibiotics, worried it could provoke inflammation in her body.
