Nutritional approaches may also be beneficial. The patients who adopt vegetarian diets are in effect betting on it. Though the effect of meditation on the recurrence of cancer or on its ability to prolong the life of cancer patients has yet to be systematically studied, its stress-reducing qualities offer hope that such benefits are plausible. And the scientific literature on prayer suggests that this most ancient of human responses to illness may help also. It is important for anyone battling cancer, as it is for those with many other serious diseases, to know that in 90 percent of cancer cases, pain can be controlled by doctors and other health practitioners skilled in this science and art.
Cancer is usually less painful, studies show, than people expect, but the pain can still be severe.
In addition to medication, pain can be reduced through psychological therapy, acupuncture and neurological devices that block the perception of pain with an imperceptible electrical current. Hospice doctors and nurses are normally expert in pain control and provide help even to people who are not dying. Finally, we all must face death. But the way we face it can make an extraordinary difference. Some of the most poignant times of my own life have been spent with dying people.