Soapbox

I read lots of Facebook posts and blogs that talk about friends and family that have cancer. There is a common theme...whenever the chemo stops working or the cancer goes crazy, the person is referenced as "losing the fight". If the person chooses to stop treatment, they "gave up". I beg to differ. Cancer and mental illness seem to be the two diseases that place the burden of healing on the person with the disease. No one expects a person with diabetes to grow a new pancreas, or a person in kidney failure on dialysis to grow a new kidney, but someone with cancer is supposed to get well somehow, even when the cancer has spread to every organ in their body. I wonder why this is. It puts a terrible burden on the person, because they feel that they have to do every single thing the oncologist suggests in order to "win" and live. They forget that living with cancer can mean living intentionally, not merely sitting in a big chair for hours at a time, taking toxic chemicals intravenously that may not have any effect at all on the cancer but a major effect on the person's ability to feel good. Living with cancer can mean going to work, kissing your husband, and eating ice cream. If someone you love finds out they have cancer, be kind. Let them really live their best life, whatever that might look like.