Lisa Boncheck Adams, a blogger who wrote about her experience with metastatic breast cancer, passed away on March 6, 2015. In her last blog post, she reflected on how she started writing eight years ago when she was first diagnosed with breast cancer to communicate her experiences and insights with her friends and a wider audience. She found that her writing appealed to many beyond just those with cancer. Viktor Frankl's work on finding meaning in all situations, including the most brutal ones, was referenced as providing a path for how to meet each day with hope and dignity.

1. Integral Healing Blog 3-13-15
MAKING MEANING OUT OF MISFORTUNE
On March 6, 2015, we lost an important and courageous voice among those of us
who write and blog about our cancer experiences. Lisa Boncheck Adams passed
away from metastatic breast cancer. For those of you who did not know about this
vivacious woman, she had a world-wide following, and over the years she touched
the hearts of countless people. Her intention was to create a circle of mutual love
and support. This has been my intention as well. As Lisa’s light has left this realm,
I remain committed to providing you with emotional and scientific support for
however you self-author your life with or after cancer.
In Lisa’s honor, I’d like to share her last blog with you, which is meant to provide
comfort and reinforcement to create meaning out of misfortune: .

2. “This website has come full-circle. More than eight years ago I heard the words,
“You have cancer” for the first time.
I started writing about my experiences as a wife and young mother of 3 with breast
cancer. I began by posting them on my Facebook page. Soon my friends were
asking how their own friends and relatives could read my words. I was writing
about the darker, richer emotions I was feeling — aimlessness, fear, despair — but
also the dogged commitment to always be strong with an enthusiasm for life.
I wrote about death, life, family, sadness, joy and sorrow. I thought it would only
appeal to people with cancer, but I was wrong. Instead, the appeal has been far
more universal. I receive emails from people who not only have had cancer
themselves, but also those with family members who have had it. I hear from
people who have experience with other illnesses, and also those who just want to
know more about what it is like to confront mortality at an early age. The far-
reaching emotional impact of illness affects many people, and they connect with
my work.
In October of 2012 I learned that cancer had metastasized to my lymph nodes and
bones and since that time has further metastasized to other sites. I now have stage
IV breast cancer. Again I feel the need to communicate not only about the disease
itself (true awareness) but also about its impact on my young family. My posts
often give my insights into how to raise children who are resilient and can cope
with inevitable hardship. The blog also will be a record of my love and devotion to
my children. There is nowhere I would rather be than here with them.”

3. As you can see, Lisa has developed a profound perspective on her tragic situation.
She has found a way to find meaning in it—something that I have found crucial to
my own bout with cancer. This past summer I was recruited for a clinical trial on
the best way to conduct a post-treatment cancer support group. One half of the
groups met weekly to discuss whatever popped into their minds for two hours. The
other group, in which I was placed, had discussions with readings on how to make
meaning of our situations We had periodic evaluations on how well the
discussions were assisting us in making meaning of our cancer and of our post-
cancer lives.
Viktor Frankl’s work was our basic reference. Born in Vienna, he earned an M.D.
in neurology and a Ph.D. in psychiatry. Later during the Hitler era of the “final
solution,” Frankl, his wife and parents were deported to a Nazi ghetto where he
was able to work as a psychiatrist assisting the residents adapt as best they could to
their unholy circumstances. His father died there, and in October 1944 Frankl and
his wife were transported to Auschwitz concentration camp. He was then sent to
the Dachau slave labor camp where he worked until he was liberated in April 1945.
Upon being liberated he was told his wife Tilly and his brother had both been
gassed at Auschwitz.

4. The horrors he had seen and experienced during these years led him to write many
books as he developed a form of existential analysis he called logotherapy. It can
be read in his best-selling book, Man’s Search For Meaning, wherein he explains
the importance of finding meaning in all forms of existence, even the most brutal
ones; and thus, to find sufficient meaning to continue living.
In one poignant summary of his feelings after his liberation, he noted,
“A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into
song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The
truth – that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which Man can aspire. Then
I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought
and belief have to impart: The salvation of Man is through love and in love. I
understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it
only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved [meaning a loved one
or the Divine]. In a position of utter desolation, when Man cannot express himself
in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his
sufferings in the right way – an honorable way – in such a position Man can,

5. through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve
fulfillment. For the first time in my life I was able to understand the meaning of the
words, ‘The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory.’"
From the death of a breast cancer blogger to the survival of a concentration camp
scientist/author, there is a clue, a path, as to how we may each confidently meet
every day with whatever it might bring us, with dignity, hope, and love. These tie
together my focus on our thoughts, beliefs, and emotions.
My next blog will offer ways in which we might self-author our search for
meaning and make maximum use of our unique and everlasting gifts.
May you all be well until we met again.