Here's What's Hard

[ricevermicelli]

Last Sunday, danceboy had to take me to the ER, where we had a nurse who, well. She asked me what happened to my hair, and then she told me all about her friend, who had cancer, and because she had cancer, her awful fiance who turned out to be a crackhead anyway left her, and her friend met someone a million times better and is getting married next month, and also wrote a book, and was on television with some important medical guy, and threw out the first pitch at Fenway. Because, I guess, that's what cancer means in your life. I would be happy to sign up to throw a ball over the plate at any ball park anywhere, anytime I still have arms. I just don't see the ball clubs lining up to ask me, and not JUST because I was always picked last in gym class. There are way more people with cancer then there are opening days at ballparks.

I cannot buy into the cancer warrior bullshit. I do not think that cancer empowers me, or changes my life for the better. I cannot regard it as an excuse for stepping even slightly away from certain responsibilities. Cancer has not inspired me. Mostly, it has made me annoyed, and the treatments have made me pretty sick.

I just can't help but notice that the people who do buy into the cancer warrior bullshit are much happier. I wish it wasn't so obviously such bullshit. If buying in required less suspension of critical faculties, it might be nice to go ahead.

I'm having a similar experience with religion. I was sort of agnostic before, even tending towards a generic theism. Then I got cancer, and the experience has thus far confirmed for me that I don't believe in God in the slightest. The emotional resonance has drained right out of those myths. On the other hand, the winner of this year's Google Science Fair made me cry. Sometimes I walk around the hospital and look at all the plaques, and want to write very personal thank you notes to some of the donors, because we clearly have to rely on human generosity to produce predictable goodness in this roulette wheel of a universe, so that kind of thing ought to be encouraged. There's a ton of praying that goes on in the Oncology units, and it clearly comforts the people involved. It must be nice to be one of them, but I don't think it works that way for me.

Comments

[beth_leonard]

I read somewhere that long-term studies of people who had survived commercial plane crashes showed that those individuals were more resilient and successful than their non-plane-crash-yet-still-traveling peers. I think that the cancer warrior effect can be true for some people, in that it gives them more of a purpose in life and helps them focus on what's really important to them. Having overcome something, it makes them more able to overcome more things.

You, however, already had a purpose in life and already knew what was important to you. So you don't get the positive benefits and cancer just really wrecks your life for a while.

I am in fact trying very hard to take your advice and not get cancer. I will be going back for my second follow-up mammogram with possible ultrasound in two weeks. This happened last year too, but last year they didn't call me 3 times to make sure I actually scheduled it.

--Beth

[herooftheage.livejournal.com]

So I've always told people cancer patients don't fight cancer - their doctors do. You either do what your doctor wants you to do, or you don't. Pretty much everything else is sit there while they poison, irradiate, and hack bits out of you.

I was reasonably happy during my cancer treatment. 1) Morphine. I had lots of it. It works really well on me. When they were done with morphine, oxycodone. I didn't get addicted to the stuff, but I also didn't stop taking it until all the pills were gone. 2) I discovered I wasn't particularly afraid of dying, at least in this not very likely iteration. It did put a new focus on the things I was doing, though. At least, once I was done with the morphine and oxycodone.

Oh, I didn't mention, if a doctor offers to put a food tube in your stomach, seriously consider taking it. It might not be necessary because of your cancer, but it is awfully convenient if you lose any desire to eat, and I gather cuts down on nausea. (I wouldn't know - I had no nausea anytime during my stint.)

[beth_leonard]

Good info to know.

Luckily I had my call-back mammogram with ultrasound today (babies with heartbeats are so much more fun to look at than black blobs) and despite another 5 pictures of my left breast (at first it was 4, then the tech came back and said they needed another one) and the measuring of said little black blobs on the ultrasound which turned out to be lymph nodes, I appear to be free-and-clear for another year.

Next year, I'm wondering if I can just schedule the call-back appointments in advance for the same day. There's lots of other big stuff going on in my life right now, and I didn't need additional anxiety.

--Beth

[tisiphone.livejournal.com]

You're not the only one who feels that way. I know I've read more than one article about how the whole Cancer Warrior thing really pushes people into putting on an act that they're happy despite the cancer, and how it makes them miserable actually. I'll see if I can find it.

[dee-cee.livejournal.com]

My Mom's been dealing with endometrial cancer for over four years now. When the cancer came back in her lungs, her Mormon oncologist told her it was because she didn't have enough faith. She has a new doc now that believes in SCIENCE, and is helping her by trying new research.

...that's also part of the reason I've hesitated words of support. Every cancer patients' struggle is different, and I didn't want to muck up my expression of sympathy and support with my experiences watching what my Moms going through. You're already going through it. But as humans, we try to associate things to make sense of it.

Do I think faith helps? Dunno. But I know Science definitely does.

[omnia-mutantur.livejournal.com]

There's an xkcd comic that I kept going back to during the surgeries, with the tag line "I find my courage where I can, but I take my weapons from science. Because they work, bitches."

[mizarchivist]

Love that sentiment.

[taura-g.livejournal.com]

Yes.

[mizarchivist]

It's funny (in a "huh" kind of way): I read the first half of the post, and was immediately drawn to the "sounds like the difference between those who are devoutly believing with religion and those who are not." Yep. That.

[beah.livejournal.com]

Whoa, a 17-yr-old built that neutral network? Thank goodness for little girls!

[zuleikhajami.livejournal.com]

I assume you've read Barbara Ehrenreich's book about cancer and the positive thinking movement (it's a critical look, if you haven't... I think it's called Brightsided).

[drwex]

I can see that.Science ho and fuck all that bullshit. Going to go watch the link now.

[taura-g.livejournal.com]

In my darkest times, I have found the things in my life that I value are what gave me strength.

I cannot speak to the Cancer Warrior phenomena, but the two things I found strength and comfort in were the loves in my life and having doctors that I/we trusted.

[ricevermicelli.livejournal.com]

I know! It was the most amazing set of annoying things ever. I especially liked the recitation on how cancer lets you jettison your loser partner for a super-supportive rich guy, which was delivered IN FRONT OF my husband. The guy who has been taking notes so detailed and comprehensive that it doesn't matter whether I can think in a doctor's office, even though I really think this has hit him harder, emotionally, than it's hitting me (there are ways you can check out when it's happening to you, and sometimes I just feel like, whatever - they're gonna sedate me for that, I'm sleeping through it, and no one is offering Daniel any of those drugs).

I shudder to think of the consequences of putting Danger Lad! and Hotspur in the same house as a flanged mace. They are both very impressed by HawkGirl. It could be bad. But thank you for offering.

[kuddliphish.livejournal.com]

A writer acquaintance of mine first started dealing with cancer in 2008. His story isn't exactly inspiring since the cancer keeps coming back, but he has made an effort to record his experiences honestly. He talks a lot about fear, and some about the struggles of being an atheist with cancer and his annoyance with wishful thinking, as well as the gritty reality of how cancer messes with your life in lots of ways. You might find his blog a nice antidote to cancer warrior stories.

[damascene.livejournal.com]

I was mostly resentful. So many plans and commitments disrupted, so much of my time and partners' time and friends' time required to attend to treatments and support. So much effort necessary even to think coherently, to manage the routine tasks of a routine day.

Cancer warrior, not. Those months were simply and only the time and effort I and we had to spend to get me through the treatments, past the disease, and back to my life. It might've been easier if I'd been able to self-identify within that mythos, but I didn't ever feel heroic. Just resentful (even as I recognized the luxury of being able to be mostly resentful rather than terrified).

Annoyed sounds about on target, to me. And that ER nurse hasn't a clue, and if she's lucky she never will.