A timid tussle with cancer

“He/she fought a courageous battle with cancer.”

As far as journalistic clichés go, it’s right up there with “rain didn't dampen the enthusiasm of ...”, “neighbours said the axe-murderers were a quiet couple who kept to themselves” and “experts say”.

Clichés serve a purpose of course – they only became clichés because they effectively communicate an idea.

But the battle with cancer cliché, used a lot in the media recently here in New Zealand, does not resonate with me. I am not criticising people who feel they or their loved ones have fought a battle (or journalists who quite legitimately quote interviewees saying such things). I do not want to cause offence - it’s just that I personally didn’t feel like I was in a fight and talk of courageous battles when I felt so very tired made me feel as if I was a fraud in the whole cancer arena. I should have been donning my armour and brandishing my sword and instead there I was struggling with finding the energy to clean my teeth in the morning.

Cancer isn’t a foreign invader – it is cells in your own body going awry.  You don’t ever hear that someone bravely fought heart disease or diabetes. But for cancer? It’s pretty much compulsory, particularly with breast cancer.

I didn’t battle cancer - in fact, the treatment was usually a passive affair. I lay knocked out while surgeons cut me open. I lounged in a comfy chair while nurses put chemotherapy drugs and Herceptin into my veins. I lay, albeit awkwardly, while radiation therapists burned my skin. The only treatment where I even stood upright was (and is) my daily Tamoxifen pill.

Agreeing to the treatment in the first place wasn’t passive but nor was it courageous. The choice was take the treatment or die. “Erm...that’s a hard one. Oh okay, treatment please.”  I didn’t want to die but that doesn’t equal bravery. That’s self-preservation.

There’s also an implication with the battlefield metaphor that those who don’t make it weren’t strong enough. Or they weren’t positive enough. The other thing you get told when someone knows you have cancer is “be positive, it helps.”

I nod and smile politely when told that but I’m aware of at least one study that shows the degree of positivity you exhibit is in direct proportion to how good your prognosis is.  Negative people don’t “lose the battle with cancer” because they were negative. They were negative because they knew things weren't looking good from the beginning. It’s easier to be positive when your doctors keep giving you good news.

I didn’t fight a courageous battle with cancer, yet I’m one of the lucky ones still around – celebrating my 40^th birthday this month. I guess replacing the cliché with “He/she did what the doctor said to do” doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.

I suspect the battlefield cliché, while fairly inaccurate in many cases, makes us feel better. Cancer – like many other illnesses – is so unfair that when it kills someone we care about we want to at least think they’ve had a fighting chance.

If one day I do succumb – many, many, many years from now of course  – please don’t say I fought a courageous battle. 

Say that experts said I kept to myself and rain never dampened my enthusiasm but don't call me courageous or make a soldier out of me.