Cancer: No Winners or Losers

Fighting cancer.

Battling cancer.

Courageously fighting cancer.

I hate all these phrases. 

First, because I know too many people who have died of cancer. 

Second, because having lived through having cancer myself, I know that for me, they are lies.

I've used the phrases "fighting cancer" and "battling cancer" to describe other people's experiences, because as a society, that's what we've come to use as normal parts of speech. I try to avoid them now. Why, you ask? Because in my mind it's simply disrespectful. 

A battle is either won or lost, resulting in winners and losers. Cancer patients aren't winners or losers. Winning or losing implies a certain kind of virtue or evil. With cancer, you are either a survivor or you're not. Pretty blunt, I know, but the outcome has NOTHING to do with virtue. A cancer patient doesn't die because he or she is bad. It's not because those patients didn't fight hard enough, believe enough, have enough hope. Their bodies gave out. We are human, after all. Our bodies have limits. Biology can be a bitch in so many ways. Survivors are not somehow more virtuous. 

Let's talk about courage. I was told I was courageous when I went through cancer treatment. It made me uncomfortable at first, and once I was through it, it actually made me angry. I wasn't courageous. I was simply doing what I had to do to survive. The goal was to endure, to make it through. It was caught early. I was young enough, strong enough, and the treatment worked. I have not had a recurrence.

I was scared. Every minute of every day, and long past when the treatment was finished. I am still scared it may come back. I probably will feel that way for the rest of my life. The doctors tell you if you make it to the 5 year clear point, you're "cured." According to one of the oncologists I had, they just don't have enough information beyond that point to give accurate estimates. So yeah, I'm scared. Not terrified, but I have to tell you, treatment is awful. That phrase that if the disease doesn't kill you, the treatment will? That is sometimes true. Let me say it again: the treatment is awful. That alone is enough to scare me.

To sum it up, in my opinion, a person doesn't battle or fight cancer. A cancer patient undergoes treatment. Endures treatment. If the treatment works, the patient survives. If the treatment doesn't work, if the patient doesn't survive, that does not mean the patient was somehow lacking. That person is not a loser.