How to maintain a good state of mind in the face of liver cancer Liver cancer, known as the “king of cancers”, has a high mortality rate and short survival time once it is detected. In Western internal medicine, “liver is a silent organ” means “silent organ”, which means that liver diseases are not easy to be detected in early stage, and once patients have symptoms and liver cancer is detected, it is mostly in the middle and late stage, and the chance of surgery is lost. The prognosis is poor. Early small liver cancer with good prognosis is often found by physical examination. Therefore, once liver cancer is diagnosed, some people often panic and don’t know what to do, and even lose their confidence in life. Then, what should be done after discovering liver cancer? Establishing confidence to overcome the disease and maintaining an optimistic state of mind are the prerequisite and foundation to get good treatment results. In addition to the factors of disease staging, we often find that the most significant characteristics of patients with good treatment effect are optimism, cheerfulness and emotional stability; while patients with bad effect are often irritable, pessimistic and anger-prone. In the past 20 years of medical practice, I have encountered numerous examples. Some patients with liver cancer had good treatment results, had minimally invasive treatment, and even reached the standard of clinical cure, and had already gone home to recuperate, but because of trivial matters in life, they lost their temper and died because of violent emotional changes that induced gastrointestinal hemorrhage. Some patients, upon hearing that they had liver cancer, became emotionally pessimistic, lost the information of life, and even gave up the treatment. Originally, the early stage disease, which could be cured by active surgery or minimally invasive interventional means, was delayed for 2~3 months, and they had to seek medical treatment only when the disease development seriously affected their life, and as a result, they really lost the chance of cure. Some people say that doctors have said that early stage liver cancer can be treated by surgery and local minimally invasive interventions with good results, but once I found out that the liver cancer is very large, or multiple, with portal vein aneurysm embolism, or even extrahepatic metastasis, some surgeons say that it is advanced and the effect of surgery is very poor, and some surgeons even simply let me go home, saying that there is no chance of surgery, so how can I have confidence? Speaking of this, I have to mention that one of the characteristics of liver cancer is the individual difference, and the treatment effect of the same disease varies greatly. I once had an advanced hepatocellular carcinoma with inferior vena cava tumor embolism, and the tumor embolism grew along the blood vessel all the way to the heart. Finally, the patient had an intervention, and after a month of review, a miracle occurred, the tumor in the heart had completely retreated, and the liver tumor had also shrunk significantly, and the second intervention was done smoothly, and originally I thought if I had to do the next treatment with radiotherapy, but it turned out that after another month of review, the tumor had completely disappeared, the liver tumor had been inactivated, and the patient survived for a long time. The patient survived for a long time. So I say, even at the advanced stage, do not worry, find the disease, treat it scientifically, treat it correctly, the effort to come, no regrets for yourself, no regrets for your family, success or not depends on luck! Therefore, each patient visits, I have to do the first thing, is health education, guidance to patients how to control “temper”, how to maintain a good state of mind. There are some tips, here to reveal, for example: every morning before waking up, the first thing, quietly in the heart to recall their past happy things, as homework, daily, can lift the spirit, maintain an optimistic and happy state of mind; learn to practice tai chi or slow walking, can improve the impatience of the problem, improve the temperament and so on. Cultivating good therapeutic compliance is the guarantee of obtaining curative effect. The so-called therapeutic compliance, which can also be called compliance and conformity, reflects the relationship between patients and medical personnel. In ancient times, Chinese medicine has attached great importance to this principle: “If you believe in witchcraft but not in medicine, your illness cannot be cured”. In modern society, due to the influence of “impetuous mentality, lack of faith, money,” and other undesirable culture, to a certain extent, the doctor-patient relationship is tense, mutual trust has declined, so that patients see a doctor, always feel that the doctor is not reliable, always look for an acquaintance, or entrust an acquaintance to introduce the line, to do surgery without sending a red envelope, the heart is not secure. Although we do not exclude that individual doctors have a serious utilitarian mentality and are “money-oriented”, the vast majority of doctors have a professional pursuit and dedication to sacrifice. Not to mention the resistance to “SAS” in spite of their own lives in the front of the medical staff, usually the intensity of work, outsiders simply can not imagine. On an individual basis, if we are satisfied with the results of a patient’s treatment, we are even happier than the patient, which fully reflects the doctor’s sense of professional achievement, and support a doctor has been not afraid to work hard to do the most important thing is not money, but a sense of professional achievement. Therefore, to see a doctor, it may not be necessary to look for acquaintances, may not have to send red envelopes. At most, find acquaintances to inquire about how the doctor’s reputation, technology, which is not seen in the official hospital publicity, but the most important. When it comes to treatment compliance, I have to give an example. A patient with advanced liver cancer was admitted to the outpatient clinic. Unexpectedly, a few days later, a family member of the patient, came to the hospital, after understanding the condition, angrily said, “I looked up on the Internet, this situation can still be treated with a certain method, why do not you give him treatment?” This situation is a typical representative, some patients or patients’ families, as soon as they fall ill, first go online to look up information, not knowing that, in the era of the Internet, the information is as vast as the sea, the most important thing is not to look up information, but to identify information, modern medical progress is rapid, a doctor who does not often learn, 2-3 years later will not be able to keep up with medical progress, let alone as a layman, how to identify the truth of the information. Moreover, the propaganda made by certain media nowadays is very different from the actual situation for the sake of advertising revenue. Once a patient bought a proprietary Chinese medicine and told me that the evening newspaper reported that the efficiency of the medicine for liver cancer was over 90%. Therefore, I often tell my patients not to take drugs from advertisements and not to trust the advice of non-professional medical professionals, but to trust their doctors. Of course, in order to make patients believe in doctors, in addition to the doctor’s own excellent technology and medical ethics, but also between doctors and patients to fully communicate and exchange. The process of communication is the process of developing compliance with treatment. Some doctors, especially young doctors, are reluctant to see high-risk patients, fearing that they will not be cured and that patients will find fault. Goodness is visible, and as long as you are dedicated to your patients and communicate fully, your concerns will be left behind! When it comes to treatment compliance, there is a special phenomenon that must be mentioned: some patients see the director of Zhang’s clinic today, and the next day to a second hospital to see the director of Wang’s clinic, and after a few days, and see the director of Zhao, or even the director of Li’s clinic, as a result, several directors give different treatment advice, resulting in patients more distrust of doctors, do not know in the end who should adopt the advice. As a result, patients are more distrustful of their doctors and do not know who to use. For example, for early stage liver cancer (lesions between 1~3 and the maximum diameter of lesions is less than or equal to 3 cm), the methods available are surgical resection and minimally invasive interventional ablation, which are recognized to be equally effective. There are also radiofrequency ablation, microwave ablation, laser ablation, etc. in interventional minimally invasive. So, probably, you have early stage liver cancer, some suggest surgery, some suggest radiofrequency, some suggest laser, some suggest radioactive particle implantation and so on. All of these methods are possible, and each doctor is often recommending the method that he or she is best at. For such patients, I often tell them all the possible treatment methods and the pros and cons of each method to help them choose.