Excerpted from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Beyond Cancer podcast
If you’re 69 and diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, what do you do? For John Barrett, the answer was easy: become a certified physical trainer.

But as Barrett and Nancy Campbell, exercise physiologist at Dana-Farber, both point out, you don’t need to be an exercise zealot to incorporate exercise into your life.

“Exercise needs to be a lifestyle, not an event,” Barrett says. For cancer patients in particular, it’s about working exercise into the fabric of your everyday life.

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Excerpted from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute blog
By Kathleen Barton

When you get diagnosed with cancer, it kicks your butt – both the physical aspects of chemo and the general inertia that comes with this new thing you’re living with. Before my diagnosis, I was active – working, volunteering, exercising, and spending time with friends. Then some bruising and fatigue led me to my doctor. I was expecting to have anemia, like my sister. But that appointment turned into an emergency room visit that became a 45-day hospital stay. At some points I could barely get out of bed; just taking a shower became an amazing accomplishment. When I finally got home, I could barely walk up the stairs.
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By Holly Kelsey and Kit Cunningham
Lizards in training