We Don't Know: A Reflection on The Rhetoric of Cancer

We Don’t Know

Nicah Santos

2012-63269

I never know how to act around and talk to cancer patients. Sickness is such a sensitive topic that I’m afraid of saying something that might offend people who have suffered or are suffering from it. I didn’t realize that cancer patients also go through the struggle of finding the right words to describe the ordeal they are going through to cope with it and talk about it. I haven’t thought about it much, but I now realize that the language of cancer is something worth discussing, just like Andrew Graystone did in the podcast “The Rhetoric of Cancer”.

While listening to what was discussed in the podcast, I noticed that people who have had a personal experience with cancer have a different perspective on the language of cancer compared to those who haven’t.

Those who haven’t had a close encounter with cancer, like the woman in the business of promoting cancer research, can be unintentionally insensitive in the way they talk it. They propagate the perspective of cancer as a battle or as a war. Others who promote this point of view are the friends and relatives of cancer patients. These people don’t intend to offend or bring discomfort, but somehow they do because they don’t know what it feels like to be in the patient’s situation. They think that “war” is an appropriate metaphor for the healing process of these patients because they see the illness only as an enemy. They have no way of understanding the emotions that a patient goes through, so they cannot really be blamed for their choice of words.

On the other hand, cancer patients and those who work closely with them, their doctors, view cancer on a more personal level. To them, cancer can be a companion that brings pain but also appreciation for life. It’s a part of their bodies, and they do not wish to wage war with their own bodies; they want to befriend their illness and say farewell. Patients find it helpful to view their cancer not as an evil, but as a part of life that they can overcome, an extra burden on an extra strong individual.

Doctors too, view cancer more benignly. Doctors find it beneficial for their research to perceive the illness as a mistuned instrument in an orchestra that they must tweak for the body to create beautiful music. They see how the cells in the body work. They don’t see a battlefield; they see the wonder of the body and a patient whom they must cure.

My main takeaway from the podcast is: in spite of our good intentions, we really have to be careful with our choice of words around patients. Let’s try to see the situation from their point of view and stop pretending we know what they’re going through. The best we can do is be there for them and listen to them so we can learn more about their struggle and appreciate how they want to treat their illness.