A trenchant disparagement of the things we say to cancer patients - poignant, and instructive.-TE
The New York Times
HEALTH | March 15, 2010
Well: With Cancer, Let's Face It: Words Are Inadequate
By DANA JENNINGS
The clichés most people use when talking about someone with cancer make Dana Jennings, who was treated for prostate cancer, bristle.
"Words can just be inadequate. And as we stumble and trip toward trying to say the right and true thing, we often reach for the nearest rotted-out cliché for support. Better to say nothing, and offer the gift of your presence, than to utter bankrupt bromides. Silences make us squirm. But when I was sickest, most numbed by my treatment, it was more than healing to bask in a friend's compassionate silence, to receive and give a hug, to be sustained by a genuine smile."
"the words "fight" and "battle" make me cringe and bristle."... "We are caught in the middle, between our doctors and their potential tools of healing and the cell-devouring horde."
"We long for pain to end, for ice chips on parched lips, for the brush of a soft hand."
"Then there's the matter of bravery. We call cancer patients "brave," perhaps, because the very word cancer makes most of us tremble in fear. But there is nothing brave about showing up for surgery or radiation sessions. Is a tree brave for still standing after its leaves shrivel and fall? Bravery entails choice, and most patients have very little choice but to undergo treatment."
"Which brings me to "victim." ...Sure, I felt unlucky and sad and angry, but not like a victim...Victim implies an assailant, and there is no malice or intent with cancer. Some cells in my body mutinied, and I became a host organism — all of it completely organic and natural."
"And what are we once treatment ends? Are we survivors? ...I'm just trying to lead a positive postcancer life, ...pleased that I can realistically think about the future. I'm trying to complete the metamorphosis from brittle husk to being just me again."
"And I'm still troubled by this sentence, which I've heard many times: "Well, at least it's a good cancer." ...Most people mean well, but the idea of a good cancer makes no sense. At best, the words break meaninglessly over the patient. There are no good cancers, just as there are no good wars, no good earthquakes."
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