“Healing answers the questions that illness raises.” – Francis Weller
If you or someone you know is living with cancer as a chronic illness and you want to be inspired about healing, even with cancer still in your body, then you want to know Jan Adrian’s story. From early on, Jan has been letting healing answer the questions brought up by living with cancer, alongside all the other challenges of living. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1989 and since that time has had two other primary cancers surface, as well as multiple recurrences. Now she is in hospice and continues to discover what answers healing gives to her. Even before, or instead of, reading what I want to say about Jan, go straight to her blog where she chronicles how she is living as her life is nearing its end.
Jan and others have told her story in her memoir, documentaries, blog posts, and conference presentations, and I’ll refer you to those at the end of this blog. Here, I want to tell you personally how Jan has made a difference in one person’s life—mine.
I attended one of the “Cancer as a Turning Point: From Surviving to Thriving” conferences that Jan directed for over 25 years. These free two-day conferences for those impacted by cancer helped move each person with cancer from surviving to thriving. I was attending as a health professional who navigates people through their experience with cancer, including helping them use food in healing.
I knew I would learn from the amazing speakers—some health care professionals, others cancer survivors who became experts in their own healing. I was blown away by a one-woman performance called Jonna’s Body: Please Hold, by actress and cancer survivor Jonna Tomases. Her storytelling was funny and poignant, as she took on the characters of her different body parts affected by the cancer or treatment. They were all struggling with getting rid of the cancers and suffering from treatment side effects. They were wondering how they could wake Jonna up to pay more attention to her body, instead of continuing with the crazy, harmful, mindless way of living that got her into this mess. Jonna made her story everyone’s story.
Jan carefully chose each speaker, knowing they would make their stories relatable, like Jonna did. She knew this would encourage the audience to tell each other the stories of their own struggles and the healing gifts they have discovered along the way. These conferences were offered all over the country for many years and made a difference in the lives of thousands of people with cancer and opened the eyes of countless professionals, including me, who care for and serve cancer survivors.
Jan made it a point to know who was guiding people with cancer in non-conventional ways that recognized that each person has the ability to heal, even when cancer is incurable. She had heard of my work in culinary translation for people with cancer—that is, translating a diet prescription into real, delicious, nourishing food. And at that conference she invited me to join the naturopathic oncologist, Dr. Lise Alschuler, in presenting the day-long Cancer-Fighting Kitchen workshops. That was a turning point in my career and my life.
As I worked alongside Jan, I learned how she left no stone unturned in managing the cancer so she could go on living a good life. I still marvel at her persistent commitment to support others as they turn over every stone: they uncover hints of the right treatment or explore what most needs healing in their lives. They become inspired to move forward on a healing path—their healing path. Jan doesn’t go her journey alone—and her life’s work has been bringing people together to also experience the heart-filling power of being in community with fellow wounded healers. Even those of us who don’t have cancer have our woundedness that raises questions that only healing can answer.
I am so grateful to Jan for giving me the chance to be a fellow wounded healer alongside those she has brought together. She let me be “well-used” in my service so I could discover that the energy of healing ripples out from one heart to two hearts to countless hearts. If illness makes us fearfully ask “Will I go this alone?”, Jan’s message of healing is “You are not alone.”
Resources
Jan’s Blog: Healing Journeys
Jan’s Memoir: Coloring Outside the Lines
Interview with Jan: Book launch video
Learn more
Laura Pole is senior clinical consultant for CancerChoices. Laura is an oncology clinical nurse specialist who has been providing integrative oncology clinical care, navigation, consultation, and education services for over 40 years. She is the co-creator and co-coordinator of the Integrative Oncology Navigation Training at Smith Center for Healing and the Arts in Washington, DC. Laura also manages the “Media Watch Cancer News That You Can Use” listserv for Smith Center/Commonweal. In her role as a palliative care educator and consultant, Laura has served as statewide Respecting Choices Faculty for the Virginia POST (Physician Orders for Scope of Treatment) Collaborative as well as provided statewide professional education on palliative and end-of-life care for the Virginia Association for Hospices and Palliative Care.
For CancerChoices, Laura curates content and research, networks with clinical and organizational partners, brings awareness and education of integrative oncology at professional and patient conferences and programs, and translates research into information relevant to the patient experience as well as clinical practice.
Laura sees her work with CancerChoices as a perfect alignment of all her passions, knowledge and skills in integrative oncology care. She is honored to serve you.