F is for Fight

Cancer patients are expected to be warriors, fighters, tearing into their disease like Beowulf ripping the arms off of Grendel.  You see this in the books about how one should fight their disease and anecdotal stories of how a positive attitude will extend their life (hint, it doesn't).  I feel like Charlie Brown, trying to kick that football one more time but only every couple of months...

I don't fight my cancer.  I tolerate it.  Most of the time, we have an uneasy truce where I ignore it and it leaves me alone.  Most of the time this works.  I am not one of those people who spends time concentrating on chemo and focusing on the radiation attacking the tumors.

That doesn't mean that I pretend the disease doesn't exist and avoid treating it.  I do explore new treatments.  I do take the medicines that have a possibility of working and I do follow the progress of my disease.  I take the steps that are necessary and look for potentials in an analytic fashion but I never think of myself as fighting the disease.

I am proud of what I have been able to achieve in spite of my disease but I struggle with the image of being a fighter.  I have had it easy.  My cancer has been slow growing and I have not had the debilitating side affects that many other types of cancer get.

Please be respectful of those who are struggling with their disease.  Don't tell them that they just need to fight it because that puts the fault of their failure to survive on them rather than something that is beyond their control.  Support them in their struggle.  Sit with them and listen.  Don't say things that imply they are simply not working hard enough.  Be respectful of what treatments they choose because they know what they can tolerate and what they can handle.