Once Burned, Twice Shy

When you tell someone you have cancer, you can rightfully expect anywhere in a range of emotions. Anywhere from, 'oh, that's too bad, my uncle died of it'; taking a step back 'I am late for an appointment''; or, the ever thoughtful, 'how long do you have?' Occasionally you get a nice person who recognizes that you have just been giving a life changing diagnosis and treats you normally and says something like 'can I help you at all?'

 After dealing with that for a few decades, you can understand I can be a bit reluctant to bring up new ailments, like rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia. But tentatively I have talked about it. I have had quite a range of responses. From a rather outspoken co-worker 'ow, that's a bad one'. From others at the gym 'and you are still here working out, that's great'. Or from friends 'when will it get better?'

In other words, I am pleasantly surprised at the positive responses. I think somewhere inside, I was expecting the people to react the same as they would to a cancer diagnosis. Because it was a big change in my life, similar to a cancer diagnosis.

With the long weekend I allowed myself some downtime where I could contemplate while knitting and watching the cat snore (that's the height of my multi-tasking abilities these days). This gave me time to think about the differences between the two words: cancer and rheumatoid.

Both are life altering. Both leave you changed forever. So why does one have to make people run away?

The S-Word

I promised to blog about this recently and forgot (because of chemobrain/fibrofog - now I have two things to blame) but I was reminded yesterday. I am at a cancer related meeting for a couple days in Virginia. It is full of women who have had breast cancer. They all used the S-word to describe themselves. I did not.

I really dislike the S-word. It is a label. Is it supposed to give someone a false sense of hope to hang on - that they too can survive their cancer diagnosis? Ha! It does nothing for me.

In my life, I have survived MANY doctor appointments. I have survived EIGHT surgeries. I have survived several 'interesting' plane flights.

Dictionary.com defines Survivor as:

1. a person or thing that survives
2. Law . the one of two or more designated persons, as joint tenants or others having a joint interest, who outlives the other or others.  
3. a person who continues to function or prosper in spite of opposition, hardship, or setbacks.

In no way does  it include the word cancer in pertaining to surviving.  If I use definition #3, function or prosper in spite of opposition, hardship or setbacks. Cancer might be considered a hardship - especially while in treatment. Opposition I think of in more of a societal or political context. Setbacks are job loss, or something like that. 

 

Cancer is a disease. So is the flu and the common cold. Do you get to be called a survivor if you recover from the flu? Then there is that stupid 'Survivor' TV show. Where is the correlation between having cancer and winning the tv show? 

Perhaps the whole term is slightly over used. If everyone is a survivor, no one is because we are all equal. So stop sticking it on people who have a cancer diagnosis. It doesn't make me feel all warm and perky inside because I have a label.