The Awkwardness of Cancer; or, There's No Lipstick to Put on this Pig

In the week preceding coming here, a local hospital in the Lehigh Valley was touting its cancer program on the radio.  A male voice announces that,”1 in 3 people will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetimes.”  It goes on to say that “if you are one of the one in three, “you should contact them immediately.  They will be with you, every step of your journey.” One thing cancer is not is a journey.  Life may be a journey; a cancer diagnosis is more an invitation to do battle in hell. Who goes on a journey, with the very real expectation that they will die if they don’t and possibly die if they do?  Personally, I’d avoid that journey. Come to think of it, cancer is more limbo than anything else. 

It seems that people are made awkward by cancer. The etymology of awkward sees the first syllable meant “to go in the wrong direction.” That said, the presence of cancer reduces us to some banal stuff.  And, the banal stuff is not limited to well-intended, genuinely concerned family and friends; I’ve found it all over the oncology offices.  “Think positive thoughts.” That’s a good one.  First of all, no science supports the claim that positive thoughts mean anything in regard to getting better. Second, if I don’t think positive thoughts and succumb, well, I guess that was my fault not that of a pernicious, unrelenting, disease.

“Look at cancer as a blessing; you will see the world in a different light.  Well, I guess that’s true, but if you haven’t discovered to “live the day”, that mortality afflicts us all; that we all die then I’m glad I only encountered you in print or TV. I suppose if anything, I can identify with Meursault in The Stranger as he looks up at the night sky the night before his execution and finds a certain calmness.

Then there’s the psycho/social worker, “Are you depressed? Anxious?.”  Duh!  No,”I’m an escaped mental patient with a history of homicidal thought and aggressive behavior.”   “OK, not depressed.”

“1 in 3 people will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetimes.”  I wonder how many of the one in three survive let’s say ten years beyond diagnosis with  some quality of life?  Ten years seems a decent stretch to fully enjoy mortality.  (If I were negotiating this with God, I’d start at 30 and hope to settle for 15.)  The main thing is that we tend to equate, with some justification, cancer with death.  That said, a friend diagnosed with cancer is a stark reminder that wherever we go death is there.  The good news is that life is there as well, as long as we permit it to triumph in every year, month, week, day, hour minute, and right down to the second until we breathe no more.