A New Look on Cancer

The Rhetoric of Cancer is a BBC-produced podcast which was released on the 19th of November, 2013. It focuses on Andrew Graystone and his journey towards cancer. For background purposes, Andrew was a cancer patient for 3 years and was having trouble trying to find a language to explain his cancer experience.

As knowledge to many, slogans all around have one central theme, which is to fight cancer. This suggests a military point of view where in we all have to fight against cancer in order to stop it. This is something that Andrew was against. He couldn't understand why he should see cancer as a fight or as a battle because in the first place he doesn't want to set off a civil war within his own body.

He went to different experts and found out that the concept of "fighting" cancer started after WWII and since then we haven't really questioned this concept but instead just accepted it and used it. One of the people Andrew talks to explains the flip side of seeing cancer, which is to see it as something to live with. By seeing cancer like this, we wouldn't have to be constantly thinking that we can't win the battle. We wouldn't have to be thinking of cancer as a threat. It should be seen as something to teach us. Why must we fight it? Why can't we just remove it without fighting it? Andrew says "If I battle my cancer I’m putting myself in conflict against myself whereas St Francis of Assisi – who had long-term illness himself – is said to have spoken about viewing his as a 'sister illness' and to have embraced it like a family member. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to have cancer, but I warn you that when I die, if any one says that I have lost my battle against cancer, I will personally come back and haunt them."

I think this is a refreshing way to view cancer. All this time, we have been seeing cancer as an enemy, or as a terrorist in our bodies. We have viewed cancer as something that must be defeated by all costs. We should see it, not as a war between good and evil, but as a reminder that death really does exist. It is the inescapable reality of life. And we aren't all going to reach that destination the same way. We should call it as "nature's calling" that this might be our time, so make the most out of it. For me, it even seems a bit advantageous because at least you know the approximated time you have left on Earth. Unlike others who die by means of car accidents and such.

Let's see cancer as a way of re-evaluating our lives and making the most out of what we have left.

Mayumi Katrina B. Rix

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