A slog more than fight

Until my mid-teens ‘fight’ meant one of three things:

1. Squabbles between siblings – verbal, physical, but more often than not both.
2. Altercations between kids at school, rival gangs, or the heavily inebriated having the kind of night they’d completely forget by morning.
3. Boxing – where men knocked the stuffing out of each other for money in the name of sport. Female boxers were strongly discouraged at the time.

Since then ‘fight’ has taken on some extra meanings:

4. The role the armed forces conduct and lay down their lives for when politicians, fanatics, dictators or megalomaniacs fail to address their differences peacefully and revert to Neanderthal tactics. Clubbing one’s rivals is a proven solution tried and tested over many millennia.

5. The thing people with life-threatening or terminal illnesses are supposed to do, especially people diagnosed with cancer.

As a simple soul I’m ill equipped to explain why a proportion of humanity continue to pursue theological, political and ideological power-games that lead to more serious and deadly forms of the altercations witnessed in my childhood and teens. It must be something only despots truly understand.

I know a little more about the expectation to fight cancer than I’d ideally like and unfortunately its the kind of knowledge that once incorporated is impossible to forget. The language of cancer is frequently the language of war. People fight cancer, battle with cancer or wage a war on cancer because they are fighters, warriors, or even assassins. On some occasions  people win their cancer fight, but rarely is that completely guaranteed. On other occasions we’re told they battled bravely and courageously but sadly passed away. In real terms cancer is a win:lose scenario but whatever the situation, the language of cancer is full to the brim with fighting talk.

Perhaps societally we find it easier to deal with cancer if we say it’s something people fight. Fights can be won so when someone fights cancer there’s a chance they might win. This in turn can help make it a less frightening prospect for everyone else. School sports events conditioned us from an early age to know the winning team is always where it’s at so we rarely hear talk of people giving up, refusing the fight or waving the white flag of surrender. Giving up just isn’t the done thing, we must stay strong and keep fighting. There’s no glory in coming second, we have to win!  When people die (and lots of us will die from cancer) we hear talk of remaining courageous to the end. Perhaps this too is a means to make the truth easier to bear because someone else just lost their life to a disease we barely understand and still cannot prevent or cure.

I don’t like violence and never fully understood how anyone could fight with themselves so the language of cancer has never proven particularly helpful for me. Like it or not cancer is a bunch of our own cells that proliferate forever – cells that somehow manage to step outside the normal circle of life. Cancer is me, albeit an aberrant version. We are all different and for some people fighting analogies might be hugely helpful. For me the whole cancer thing is more of a slog.

Slog:

1. to work hard over a long period especially doing work that is difficult or boring.
2. to travel or move with difficulty, for example through wet, sticky soil or snow, or when you are very tired.

Dealing with cancer has taken considerable effort from me and my medical team. From diagnosis to current day I’ve been fortunate to receive nine separate surgical procedures designed to eradicate cancer, deal with the unwanted after effects of previous surgeries and do as much as possible to prevent any return of a disease with a high propensity to spring up elsewhere. In parallel chemo and monoclonal antibody therapies took place over a period of 10 months, again with the aim of preventing reoccurrence so that I might go on living my life in the quiet, peaceful way I’ve come to enjoy.

My cancer journey to date has taken four years, almost 15% of my adult life. In real terms this is very little – for some people including my own mother, aunt and grandmother it took much more.  I will always be grateful for every extra second gained through the expertise and determination of my medical team because without them my chances were slim to non-existent. Together we have now done everything possible to help me remain cancer free. Only time will tell if it’s been enough.

I haven’t been fighting for four years, I haven’t been brave or courageous and I don’t feel like a warrior. I faced a situation with few options, underwent gruelling treatment with unintended consequences and continue to rebuild my life, including everyday things like walking and working memory. I’ve been unrelenting for four years, enduring and tenacious, and I often feel tired and decrepit. I keep pushing myself hard because I want to do the things I could pre-cancer. Sitting here waiting or wishing for their return isn’t going to work.

In the time it’s taken to walk this cancer journey so far I could have walked around the Earth twice. Don’t get me wrong, I am glad to be here and largely in one piece but that’s not enough because I’m not old enough to be decrepit. When I can once again walk more than a few hundred yards without days of painful repercussions, when I can go up stairs without grasping the handrail for fear my knees will give way and when I can read a book when tired and not have to re-read it next day I’ll be completely overjoyed.

For me this cancer journey continues even though the cancer itself appears to be gone. It’s much more a slog than a fight.

Credit: CRUK

 

 

The daily prompt – Fight.