liveweak

this has been something that has been on my mind for sometime now. i came across this nytimes article a month ago which talks about how we often frame cancership in terms of a fight or a battle. here is a quote from the article:

“Over the last 40 years, war has become the most common metaphor, with patients girding themselves against the enemy, doctors as generals, medicines as weapons. When the news broke about Senator Kennedy, he was ubiquitously described as a fighter.”

the term “cancer fighter” is such a ubiquitous term in how we talk about the disease that we seldom delve beyond its sound-byte. but its position is clearly stated in the article by a promenient cancer bloger: “If anyone can beat it, it’s you,” “You gotta think positively” and [besides] “Just look at Lance.”

this may come as a surprise to some of you, but i *hate* framing my cancership in those terms. i think that they offer nothing but plattitudes that do more harm than good. Three of the plattitudes are perfectly represented in the quote above.

first, “If anyone can beat it, it’s you”. here you are told that cancer is “beatable”–that you can control your fate when it comes to living or dying. and “it’s you” who will live. its unvoiced, but CERTAINLY, the sentiment is that the others who have lost their “battle” with cancer are losers. You, however, are a winner. but what if you succumb to cancer like the others–does that make you a loser too?

its best not to think about that possibility. “You gotta think positively”. Oh, right! the answer to how to “fight” is to keep your thoughts happy and strong. any hint of doubt or fear is a sign of weakness that you must immediately shut-out. Happy thoughts kill cancer cells. They also insure that your liver and kidneys will not fail. Fight cancer with “can do”-isms. of course!

And besides, “Just look at Lance”. first let me be clear–i am in no way bashing Lance in what he went through. nor am i ignoring how his ordeal has helped raise cancer-awareness. instead, what i am advocating in this entry is that EVERYONE has to find their own way of dealing with cancer. moreover, the “livestrong” mantra and the martial language that accompanies it, has smothered all other ways of talking about cancer. as the article intimates, these metaphors that are commonly associated with cancer, are not only inappropriate, but they are also harmful to cancer patients in the ways they constrict the ways in which we view cancer.

instead, i’d like to give voice to something that most cancer patient feel: there is no such thing as “fighting” cancer, only “living with” cancer; there is room for being afraid and a space for being depressed. there is a language for all of the dark things that we feel without the guilt of feeling “weak”.

i understand why many of my friends tell me to “fight on”. they don’t know what other words to grasp for (again thanks to dominance of livestrong). i understand that, as cancer patients, there is an allure to being a “cancer fighter”. as victims of improbabilities, it gives us back our sense of control.

but one of the most important lessons that i have learned about my cancership is how to live without ANY control over what will happen tomorrow. it has been an acknowledgment that i am completely powerless over certain things in my life. by “living weak”, i have learned the humility and grace that comes from having NO control over when i will die. by “living weak”, i have discovered that TRUE courage is, with eyes wide open, stepping into fear with nothing more than hope.

so i’d like to give an alternative language to help people talk about cancer, and that is to accept, and to hope, and to “liveweak”.

~ by lentaing on July 22, 2008.