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Cancer patients encouraged to remain positive

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Cancer patients have been urged to use the negative thoughts to strengthen their cancer recovery journey. That’s the message from Durban based cancer support group, Pink Phoenix Cancer Foundation.

The organisation was speaking to SABC’s Newsbreak Talk on how to motivate cancer sufferers to keep on fighting.

October is Breast Cancer Awareness month.

Founder Sharon van Straaten is a throat and lymph cancer survivor. She says accepting the negative aspects of the disease and not shutting them off, takes you one step closer to healing.

“When you take responsibility, when you get diagnosed with cancer – your whole life gets turned upside down and you lose your sense of control. When you get told to be positive, it’s a way of shutting you down mentally. It means it’s not allowing you to process those negative thoughts so this is my point. Strength does not come from being positive, strength comes from the ability to process negative thoughts and then choose to deal with it in a positive way,” adds Straaten.

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