"For nine years it was something I rarely talked about, other than with close friends and family. Then in June of 1998, I was asked to present my miracle story at the Dana-Farber Institute with 150 CEO's and Boston doctors, including a Nobel prize winner in cancer medicine," acknowledges Margie. "That's when I realized my victorious battle with a disease that threatened my life wasn't just a chapter to put behind me. It was a story to share."

Then the phone started to ring off the hook. And so evolved Embracing Challenge, an originally self-published book to be published next year by Doubleday. Embracing Challenge documents Levine's extraordinary defeat of pleuralmesothelioma to become the world's longest survivor of the disease.

When doctors told Levine in 1989 that her cancer which had ravished her body had no cure, they advised the former health education teacher and social worker to pass the six months she had left with loved ones. Levine had other ideas. She wasn't about to accept a death sentence. She devised a tremendously aggressive treatment for a very aggressive illness. She convinced doctors at Brigham and Farber to let her design her own treatment protocol, the first of its kind ever done in Boston. It included surgeries, 25 sessions of radiation and 4 intensive chemo sessions. Margie tolerated the harshest drugs that can be given to a human body.

"They rebuilt my chest wall. I have one hundred clips around my heart," notes Levine. Margie also recognized that to heal, sometimes medicine alone is not enough. The connection between mind, body and spirit was at the heart of healing fully from this life threatening disease. She defined forty-one steps to healing including forgiveness, journaling, vegetable preparation rituals, affirmations and designing custom visualization tapes. Her tools and methods are the backbone of Embracing Challenge, which is given to all lung cancer patients at Brigham and Women's Hospital.

Margie's goal is to empower others, and Embracing Challenge is designed as a self-empowerment guide. Today, she works with other cancer patients worldwide through speaker phone or in private homes training others in what she deems the most important part of healing: visualization and guided imagery. Margie also presents workshops on integrative medicine using her forty-one techniques in local Boston hospitals.

"I train individuals to communicate with their individual cells and direct them what to do," notes Levine. "I guide them to develop imagery that evokes the personal healing power of the individual person." She also runs the Boston chapter of the Institute for Noetic Sciences, an international resource and educational organization exploring higher consciousness and mind-body health started by Apollo astronaut Edgar Mitchell.

Cancer was a turning point and revealed a mission for Margie. "I feel like I've been kept alive for a reason," she reflects. "I used to rush through my meals helter skelter. Talk about human doings versus human beings! Now I slow down." Her healing crisis connected her to a divine source, leaving her with a more potent connection to the divine. "I suffered for 20 years with a back problem that required me to become a good coper. I became very strong learning we have more abilities to cope when put to the test than we realize." In this sense, Margie's fight with cancer drew upon the strength she had developed through the years of living with her back pain.

"I believe we are on the verge of finding a healing system that exists within us. If we learn to tap it through visualization and meditation then we can enhance our immune system and be on the path towards healing. I am grateful for every day and I want to give back. I've devoted my life to help other cancer patients harness their own coping skills to cope. If I die tomorrow, I know I've made a difference in the world."

The Healing Way: A Journal for Cancer Survivors

Margie Davis, now 50, is someone who when confronted with life's challenges does not remain idle or detached. She takes action. For the past seven years she has been teaching personal essay writing and helping people look reflectively at the events in their lives. Nine years ago Margie's father died of brain cancer.

"That was my first close up experience of someone with cancer. Over the past two years a close friend has been struggling with cancer and cancer treatment. Being an Aries, I could not just sit by and watch. I had to do something. When I saw what my friend was going through, including the side effects she had from chemo and radiation, I realized she could get a lot by writing about the experience. Then I thought more globally. Everyone with cancer could be writing about their experience and reaping the benefits from their writing."

Davis knew from her experience that expressive writing helps people heal emotionally. "That's all I knew at first. So, I did research. I got in touch with a clinical specialist at the Melrose-Wakefield Hospital, Maureen Kelley. At that time she had over fourteen years of clinical experience working with people with cancer. She educated me about the psychosocial issues that people with cancer face. I wrote a first draft of The Healing Way with topics and prompting questions to aid the cancer survivor in their healing process and went around to different people for feedback. I got help on the first draft from my friend, who was in fact writing, partly at my suggestion."

As Margie researched this kind of expressive writing, she learned about research done in the 1980's by John Pennebaker, a psychologist. His clinical research showed that writing deep thoughts and feelings could help people heal not only emotionally, but physically as well. "This type of writing produces lymphocytes, a type of white blood cell that boosts the immune system. That is part of the physical part of the healing." Pennebaker and colleagues repeated the study many times. Half the test subjects wrote their deep thoughts and feelings after traumatic events. The other half wrote about superficial topics and they all agreed to be tested physically. Their blood was tested for lymphocytes before they started writing, right after they finished writing, and then six weeks after they finished writing.

"The researchers also did skin conductivity tests right after writing and found that the skin was drier. When your hands are clammy you are anxious, not calm. They measured the heart rate and pulse right after writing and showed that both had decreased. All these findings showed that the subjects were more relaxed, suggesting that the act of writing releases thoughts and feelings and calms people down. None of these changes occurred in the control group who wrote about superficial topics."

Margie sent Dr. Pennebaker a draft of her book. His wife also looked at it. She was a breast cancer survivor, so both Pennebakers became supporters of the book. In fact, James Pennebaker wrote back, "The research evidence is clear: writing about emotional upheaval improves physical and mental health. You have put together an important cancer journal that can guide people through their own emotional and psychological journey after a cancer diagnosis. Its strategy is to encourage individuals to look at their lives as they progress from learning about their cancer, through treatment and beyond. As a researcher and a spouse of a cancer survivor, I strongly support your book."

Margie's vision for the book is to help people heal. "From the book sprang the idea to offer expressive writing courses. I lead "Writing About Cancer" courses on-line at my web site www.writingtoheal.com, and in person at Dana-Farber, the Wellness Community, and other hospitals and support groups.

"People who sign up on-line are in all stages of cancer: in treatment, in remission, or living with cancer. For people in remission, some have been in remission for many years." Two of Margie's recent students were long time survivors, seven and nine years respectively. "While their bodies had healed, their emotional health still wasn't up to par," reflects Davis. "They still carried with them the emotional scars of that time, being treated for cancer. They felt a need to write their stories to explore the remnants of their experience with cancer. The Healing Way serves this function too — helping both patients and survivors put their cancer experience into perspective."

The book is organized into two parts. The first part has writing topics with prompting questions to write about within categories. The back part of the book is called the "personal resource section." This section is for keeping notes, so the book can be an intimate companion for patients while they are being treated. It includes a place to ask questions of doctors. When people are having chemotherapy they often have brainfog and can't think quickly on the spot. Here they can prepare the questions in advance and there is room to write down the answers. There are also pages to write down test results so they can keep track of their own progress. There is room as well to write down names and phone numbers of the dozens of people that come into your life when you have cancer, and a section to put down important dates like treatment schedules. I recommend that cancer patients write down their treatment dates in pencil, since they are always subject to change based on blood counts."

Margie donates a portion of her proceeds from the sale of each book to cancer patient support organizations. "This is another way to support cancer patients," she acknowledges.

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Linda Marks, MSM, has practiced heart-centered, psychospiritual body-centered psychotherapy for sixteen years.  She is founder of the Institute for Emotional-Kinesthetic Psychotherapy in Newton, and author of LIVING WITH VISION: RECLAIMING THE POWER OF THE HEART (Knowledge Systems, 1988).  She has taught and spoken nationally and internationally, and has been a leader in the emerging field of somatic psychology.  She lives in Newton, MA with her four year old son, Alexander.  Linda's new book EMBODYING THE SOUL: DANCING INTO LIFE is due for release in the spring of 2001.  You can contact her at (617)965-7846 or LSMHEART@aol.com

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