this is a fun one. a summary of this argument, for those of you who don’t have the time to read all 3,400 words (which are one-part argument but also one-part history of how this framing of cancer came to be and stuck):
[…]hawkish words – talk of ‘battling’, as opposed to, say, ‘coping with’ cancer – have fallen out of favour among physicians, psychologists and patient advocates. As a practising oncologist I avoided that sort of language. War metaphors seemed inapt for describing research or cancer care. And I recognised this risk: if a treatment doesn’t work, if a tumour progresses, patients who have been led to believe that they’re supposed to put up a fight against cancer may blame themselves, mistakenly thinking that they lacked sufficient strength or will, when it’s the treatment that failed.
Many doctors have objected to the use of military words in the context of illness due to the potential psychological ramifications. A person’s lack of responsiveness to cancer treatment, a relapse or death could erroneously suggest that they didn’t try hard enough, that they were ‘weak’ and somehow responsible for succumbing to their illness. A patient’s loved ones may blame them, consciously or not, if they fare poorly after a cancer diagnosis. Patients may even blame themselves.
I’ve always felt very uncomfortable when people and news outlets describe someone as having “lost their battle” with cancer. To me it was almost a projection of weakness on that person for not “putting up a better fight” or something. I know obviously this is never the intention, but I think this highlights how the use of such language can be problematic.
As a cancer patient I was heavily opposed to the “fight” language as well. I just broke down and cried a lot after my diagnosis.
I didn’t cry until the Human Resources department at my work told me I’d be “terminated” from the job. Cried a lot then.
Luckily a friend told me I couldn’t be fired because a leave for cancer falls under the Americans with disabilities act, so I was able to make a fuss and continue buying my health insurance through my job (at an outrageous mark-up) while I was out getting treatment.
The fight against cancer is a fight against ableist systems of oppression like what you’re talking about here. I’m sorry for what you had to go through.
Thank you. I am missing significant chunks of a couple organs, but I’m doing groovy. It was quite a shock to see the system from “the other side.” And to see how the deck is stacked against anyone who can’t/won’t fit into a tidy economically-productive-for-the-company slot.
Language and rhetoric aside for a moment. Isn’t the premise of even curing cancer a flawed one at best? I’ve heard (and I’m no doctor), that theoretically cancer is the disease that takes us after we’ve cured everything else, that the body will either succumb from dementia (mental) or cancer (physical) because our aging and depleting cells are no longer capable of fending off disease.
So yes, it would make sense to me that we (as a society) should focus on cancer as a thing worth understanding and coping with rather than on conquering or battling it. But there’s the macro and the micro. And if it treating it like a disease worth conquering produces the psychological will for an individual to cope with it and perhaps overcome it, then they should do what feels right for them.
Some really good points I hadn’t considered there.
I think it’s important that the medical professionals do not use such terminology and instead try to be as neutral as possible, e.g. “coping with” or “receiving treatment for”. If a patient wants to say they’re fighting cancer, that’s up to the patient. For some it might help them feel like they have a bit of control over a situation where they’re powerless, for others it might make it worse.
When you put it that way, yeah, the whole “fight” thing doesnt make sense. Like how would you even go about fighting it? Youre at the mercy of your doctor and the medical treatments they prescribe to you.
I feel like we’ve seen a lot of violence twinged rhetoric slowly worm it’s way into the main stream. “So-so SLAMS, UTTERLY DESTROYS other so-so in new interview.”
When I was going through cancer treatment, I utterly despised the “fight” and and “battle” metaphors. Envisioning the chemo as fighter jets blasting evil cancer cells felt wrong, too. The entire adversarial attitude bothered me.
Cancer cells are still my cells, still me. They aren’t alien or evil, they are malfunctioning. They lost the instructions that tell them when to turn off, so we have to use chemo or whatever to turn them off. Force-quit the little buggers.
Thanks for the TLDR and it’s a very intriguing idea.
On one hand, “battling/fighting” cancer kind of gives a kind of strength to the patient that they can possibly overcome and survive the illness, while struggling, coping etc. would not.
On the other hand, the article is right that by using that term, many patients and people around them may implicitly pin the failure to fully treat cancer as a failure of the patient themselves.
The best thing I can come up with off the top of my head is “dealing with cancer”. Terms like coping with cancer imply a weakness. Dealing seems like a neutral middle-ground to portray the strength of the patient through the ordeal while recognizing that the situation isn’t all in the patient’s control.
