This passed summer I took a course called Medical Sociology. It was extremely apropos considering it was one of the first classes I took after my chemotherapy treatments had finished. I wanted to educate myself as much as I could about the medical world without becoming a doctor and I figured this class was a good starting point. One option for the final paper for this class was to write an illness narrative about the experiences I had at a time in my life while I was sick. I know. Easiest A ever. However, ever since then I’ve been reflecting about the closing paragraph of my paper and wondering if any other cancer patients (or any “sick” person) feels the same way. I wrote:

If there is one piece of advice I could give to any other cancer patient it is to submit to your disease. I never understood the concept of “the fight of my life” or when people told me to “fight this thing, Chris.” That is the worse advice I’ve ever received. Fighting against this disease is fighting against my bone marrow and the processes it goes through naturally. How do I fight that? How do I fight my biological nature? Close my eyes really, really tight and think: “Get better bone marrow. Get better fast.” And then what? Tinkerbell appears and sprinkles pixie dust on me and magically my bone marrow is fine AND I can fly too? No. I don’t think so. Or how about my bone marrow and I draw swords and have a duel to the death? Somehow I think I’d lose that fight too. The fact is that one has to submit to the disease. Give in to the fact that there is a disease in you and that you have no control over. Then, once you accept that, you receive the treatment for it. You fight the urge to rip the tubes out of your arm and run away from the hospital screaming. Submit to the doctors and nurses when you have to because they’re just doing what they were taught to save your life. Fight against hospital protocol because that stands in direct opposition of personalized care. Be a part of your treatment plan and fight for the options you believe are best for you. Don’t fight against your disease. Let the chemo do that for you. When that is done, fight to get as near as possible to the person you always wanted to be. Be your own one in a million chance. But remember with all the other fighting you have to do, don’t fight with your disease.

I do not know if this is sound advice. I may sound like a crazy lady. All I know is that this thought process is what got me through (and continues to get me through) my “battle” with cancer.

My advice is not plagues me. It is the language of illness that irritates the hell out of me. I always heard and continue to hear doctors, nurses, and friends tell me “Oh well if you’re going to get leukemia, at least you have the good one.” Or, even more oddly stated: “Oh, you have leukemia? That’s good. That’s a good cancer.” When people say this to me, mentally I hit them in the face repeatedly with a shovel or pick axe. Firstly, I did not decide to “get” cancer. I did not unwrap a present that held leukemia inside. I did not go shopping and pick up some AML.  Nor was there any personal decision making on my part to develop cancer.  Cancer is an illness. It is a mutation in the human body and not something someone gets. Secondly and more importantly, who the hell has ever, ever heard of a “good” cancer? “Good” cancers do not exist and the fact that this oxymoron continues to be perpetuated to the point where uneducated masses actually believe in this statement genuinely turns my stomach. According to an article on MedicalNewsToday.com, “7.6 million people will die this year because of cancer. That is 20,000 deaths per day.”  Where does anyone see that statistic as a “good” thing? If being 24 and facing my own mortality in any way is a good thing, I would hate to see what a bad thing is. Having poison pulse through my veins on a monthly basis for a 25% chance of being alive for the next 5 years does NOT sound “good” to me. Where is the good in any cancer? I understand the implications of “good” when referring to cancer. Most people mean the kind of cancer he or she speaks about is a curable one. There is a high life expectancy rate associated with “good” cancers. A “good” cancer is not invasive, has a low death rate, high cure rate, and is easily fixed. Brooke Burke has recently been quoted saying that her thyroid cancer is a good cancer and has a happily ever after ending even though the surgery will leave a scar across her neck. Now I ask you, what Disney movie ever ends in a cancer diagnosis? What happily ever after is there in having a surgery that will leave your body disfigured, even slightly, for the world to see? Where is the goodness in this? Maybe I am missing something here but there is no good cancer and it is time for the world to stop announcing there is. I understand clinging to this hope when a diagnosis first occurs but there is still a reality to face—cancer kills and that is not good.

I have already addressed my issue with people telling others to “fight” the disease he or she has. I will not address that term further. Calling coping with cancer a “battle” is equated to “fight” in my eyes. In a previous blog titled “The Colors of Cancer”, I discuss my personal issues with the sexualization of breast cancer and the taglines that follow that particular disease.

The word “survivor” is also used frequently when referring to someone whose cancer has reached remission. Although my favorite member of the cancer vocabulary, it too is flawed. Literally and simply put a survivor is someone who lives after an event in which others have died. In this way the term cancer survivor is accurate. However, it is also problematic. Based off of the simple definition, everyone alive is a survivor. Everyone alive is battling something, also making them survivors as well. This takes away from the specialness of the term for cancer survivors. The word survivor also evokes images of a warrior. Survivor means someone who journeys through the darkness but amazingly comes out shrouded and protected in the light. Survivors have been pushed to an edge. They have seen and experienced things the average human has not. Yet the simple implication of a journey is false. Yes there is a time frame to the process of healing from cancer. Yes there is a beginning, middle, and an arguable end. But it is not a literal journey. There is a transition from sick to healthy, but this transition is not a journey. The notion of some primal warrior, an Odyessus-like character appeals to me however, it is regrettably not. I have not eaten lotus flowers on a lost island and have not slayed a Cyclops. I have neither journeyed nor survived more than any other human.

Calling me a victim of cancer does not seem fitting either. Cancer did not choose me out of all the billions of people on earth. I did not get shot in some drive by shooting. Personally, after a while, being a victim becomes a state of mind that quite frankly does not suit me. I am not victimized by my leukemia. I do not let it affect every corner of my life. I try my hardest, as many of the other survivors I know, to purposefully not appear to be victims. We wake up every day, do our normal routines, and then go get treated however it is we receive our treatment. Where is the victimization in that? Some will argue it is the fact that the cancer exists in us at all that makes us victims. That is false. Cancer existing inside of someone is a biological mutation. It is a biological event that occurs in certain people based on a variety of reasons. Where is the victimization there?

One of my least favorite sayings is “touched by cancer.” Let that sink in for a second. Touched by cancer. What the hell does that mean? Cancer did not reach out and touch me. It did not hold me when I was scared. It did not caress my face lovingly. Leukemia did not move me spiritually. Cancer never touched me. It developed in my bone marrow, yes. It affected by life, yes. It did not touch me. I would never have let it touch me. Being touched by cancer is a disgusting phrase that needs to be removed from existence.

I have completely lost count of all the times I have been called brave, strong, or inspirational. Of the three I doubt I am any. What makes me brave, strong, or inspirational? I am far from brave. Quite the contrary actually. When diagnosed I was stunned silent. The days leading up to my month long hospital stay were the worst of my life. I could not eat or sleep. I cried to the point of numbness. I did not laugh. I barely spoke. The day before I was admitted I laid on my bedroom floor crying to my family that I would rather die than go through what I was about to go through. My actions were not (and are not) brave. I laid in a bed and received treatment because I had no other choice. It was either that or dying. That is necessity, not bravery. Strength is yet another characteristic I do not have the blessing of having. I cannot move mountains. I cannot even do a full pull-up. My pushups are laughable. The medication I received during treatment depleted my body. Dizziness became a friend. I lost weight and shrank before my families eyes. Some days it took all it could for me to get out of bed and push around the IV pole attached to me. Am I strong because I am living with a disease? Does that mean if I die I am weak or I did not fight hard enough? Strength is another word I vow to strike from my cancer vocabulary. Then we come to inspirational. What exactly makes me inspirational? I did what countless others have done when faced with the choice of life or death—I chose life. Where is the inspiration in that? My writing may be inspirational. Some have called it that. My existence is the same as anyone else’s though, rather plain and average. Nothing awe inspiring here.

I know this post is exasperating and long winded. I know it sounds like a rant rather than a blog. Yet it doesn’t change the fact that I wish someone out there would have understood the impact their language had on me while I was sick. The flowery language stung more than my meds did at times. I enjoy reality. It saddens me to have had to deal with this life experience without being rooted in facts and accurate representations. A cancer patient wants understanding. How can someone offer another understanding when there are so many euphemisms, misnomers, oxymorons, metaphors, and similes covering up the real language of cancer? Saying something to a patient that is watered down to the point of meaninglessness is useless. Saying nothing is painful. I am aware of the slippery slope it is communicating with someone who is ill. That does not mean we should not try. People need to pick up where language fails. We need to change what is inadequate and make new the talk of cancer. People need to stop perpetuating the idea of a “good cancer.” I myself have used these overly simplistic sayings because there were no other words to express how I was feeling. That is simply not good enough anymore and it needs to change. The language of cancer needs to come out of the past and move into the future. If medical technology can change over the years, so too should the language.