Breast cancer survivor credits holistic practice
By Terry Morris, Staff Writer Updated 6:52 PM Thursday, October 22, 2009
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. This article is part of our month-long focus on breast cancer. To learn more or find ways to help, go to our Pink Edition Page.
KETTERING — Jan Lively went from being “one of the lucky ones” to someone facing probable death.
“The doctor said there was no cure. I was going to die,” she said.
She “refused to accept that,” a response to crisis she believes would be far more likely now than it was then, based on her mindset.
“I felt that 42 was too young. I also felt I had not lived a truly memorable life. I hadn’t lived my life’s purpose,” she said.
Aware that cancer could recur, she has discovered her purpose and is convinced it helped save her.
It is Qigong (pronounced chee-gung or chee-gong), a holistic exercise that originated thousands of years ago in China. She’s a trained instructor and practices up to three hours a day.
The Kettering resident and former executive director of major gifts in the department of development at the University of Dayton is also a founder of the Noble Circle Project, “a community of women thriving beyond cancer" (
www.noblecircle.org).
She was diagnosed with Stage 2 breast cancer in 1998, just 18 months after a previous checkup found nothing.
Treatment including chemotherapy brought a remission that proved to be short-lived. The disease reappeared with Stage 4 virulence in her liver and spine just 18 months later, in January of 2001.
Metastatic cancer is often incurable.
“I thought I had months,” said Lively, 57, who had recently returned from a hiking and climbing expedition in Colorado when she sat down to share her experiences.
The Iowa native “was scared out of my mind” following her original diagnosis. “I couldn’t sleep. I was terrified about the possibility of death, losing a breast, or both,” she said.
She was angry at her nurses and doctors, humiliated by what was being done to her body and she was lonely. She was a divorced parent without a significant other.
“Medicine treats your body. But what about you?” she said.
She had always been active. She was a runner. There was no history of breast cancer in her family. After the cancer returned, in her internal organs, she couldn’t even bend over and touch her toes while sitting. She felt helpless.
A friend who had taken a class passed on a book about qigong, believed to combine the power of the mind with postures and movements of the body to create an internal energy known as Qi. She decided to try it.
Sessions need to be daily, but require only 20 minutes, no financial commitment, specialized clothing or equipment.
“I thought if once was good, twice would be better. I did it twice a day,” Lively said.
Coincidence or not, she quickly started feeling better. Eight weeks after she started, her tumors had shrunk by half. She was eating regularly and her strength was returning. “By the end of April, I was jogging again,” she said.
“I am sure the chemo helped, but it was clear to me the Qigong was working well with the medical treatment. I kept doing it. I wanted to learn more. I wanted to teach others.”
She had tried counseling and said "the therapist was helpful." She attended a breast cancer support group, but only for two meetings. “I didn’t want to keep talking to other people about cancer.”
She improved her diet, changed positions at UD to reduce stress and even tried internet dating. She left UD in 2002.
Nothing clicked the way qigong did.
Lively is convinced that its power “is truly in the mind. You heal yourself. Qigong is about strengthening the mind and heart through focus of intention. You tell yourself to believe it. Our thoughts, minds, emotions and bodies are all energy systems,” she said.
“I believe in science, too, but I don’t think I would be alive today if I hadn’t found qigong,” she said. “It’s a blueprint for the body.”
She has traveled to China five times to study with the masters. She has taught for seven years and worked with 500 students.
She has met just as many skeptics.
“My own son (who works in the pharmaceutical industry) doesn’t believe it. He says, ‘Show me the science,’ ” Lively said. But her doctor often recommends her classes to other cancer patients.
“When it comes to cancer, fear is the biggest killer,” she said. “The mind and body are very powerful. I try to be a positive thinker. But it’s one thing to put on a happy face and another to truly believe something. I believe this."
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