Breast cancer battle?

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jader
jader Member Posts: 223
edited June 2014 in Life After Breast Cancer

I really hate that term.  I just read that a movie star is getting engaged to her boyfriend who stood by her side while she battled breast cancer.  This particular star did not do chemo but did courageously have a double mast with recon.  OK, I get that... but a battle?  I see women on this site who have gone the gamut with this beast:   chemo regimens upon more chemo.

I had the mast, the chemo, taxol, herceptin, had to go on rest due to MUGA scans coming back under 50 ... finally finished herceptin but in a year and a half instead of a year.

I guess I just hate the sunny face to breast cancer --- when the stars don't have chemo because they luckily caught it sooo early (maybe DCIS) --- it gives people the impression that cancer is not so tough or is not debilitating for some.

And on top of that .. I hate the word battle -- it implies if one is just strong enough or determined to win that it can be done.  There is no rhyme or reason as to why some got an aggressive form and someone else gets stage 3 and never progresses .. or the girl who gets stage 1 and 5 years later has mets.  The two celebrities of late didn't have better doctors or better attitudes in order to beat it.

I meet people all the time who think that if cancer progresses to an organ that all ya have to do is operate and take it out --- you beat it once you can beat it again!!  It's all in the attitude! Be positive!

I don't have mets, no, but it's almost 5 years, markers were up and my onc is thorough -- he is of the opinion that if you catch it early there are more options for him or studies to enroll in.

There just ought to be a better word than battle  --- because women who lose their life did not lose a battle, they were slaughtered by world that cares more about getting to the moon, inventing fake diamonds and gambling our futures than finding a cure for cancer.  A cure, not early detection.

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Comments

  • iodine
    iodine Member Posts: 4,289
    edited April 2010

    Well said!

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  • Alpal
    Alpal Member Posts: 1,785
    edited April 2010

    Thank you for a wonderful post! I agree with everything you said.

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  • diana50
    diana50 Member Posts: 2,134
    edited April 2010

    i just think you DO cancer.  you do the best you can; get the treatments...and try to DO your life. that is what i have done for 8 years.

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  • coss
    coss Member Posts: 48
    edited April 2010

    Well said everyone. I just read that Phil Mickelson won the Masters while his wife was "ill" with cancer. Really? Did people see me as ill? I agree with Diana. We do cancer while getting on with the business of life.

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  • NatureGrrl
    NatureGrrl Member Posts: 1,367
    edited April 2010

    There's a lot of "stuff" around breast cancer that I don't agree with but I don't have good solutions.  I agree, "battle" doesn't fit.  There are some good blogs and journalism articles on the topic; if you haven't seen it, here's one recent one.  And while I agree I wasn't ill with breast cancer (I felt great when I was diagnosed), some people are, and I certainly was sick with the treatment!  I can get wrapped up over things like the word "survivor," too.  I hate the stereotypes perpetuated by Hollywood and the media -- you know, all breast cancer women are bald and beautiful (Oh, a new soap -- "The Bald and the Beautiful"  Just what we need.  More false stories about cancer!)  and wear stylish scarves and are thin and all that. The sunny face you mentioned!   Ha! 

    I think we all would do service to cancer and its impact if everyone, including the Hollywood types, spoke honestly about the realities of dealing with cancer.

    Like I said, I don't have solutions, and I'm not sure I need to find them... the only thing I know to do is to try to briefly discuss my own thoughts on the matter as things come up with people who haven't had to go through cancer.   Mostly I just say I went through treatment so I could get on the other side of the cancer and the treatment and move on with my life.  We do what we have to do and we do the best we can.   Going through the last year impacted me in ways that are deep and profound and I'm sure will last me the rest of my life, but I didn't and don't regard it as a battle, I wasn't a warrior, and I'm not a survivor.   I am, however, stronger than ever.  And I'm happy to feel joy again, and to be alive and enjoying life!   Maybe that makes me a grower? :)  I don't know!  I'm just happy to be here!

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  • SoCalLisa
    SoCalLisa Member Posts: 13,961
    edited April 2010

    well, I personally feel that I have been through a battle

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  • tooyoungtohavebc
    tooyoungtohavebc Member Posts: 779
    edited April 2010

    There was another thread started on this same topic some time ago and it got tons of responses. I hate the word battle or fight! Those words to me imply there is a choice to be there or not and that depending on my skill, I could win. And I did not choose this and skill ain't helping me out.

    So I look at this as something I am enduring....I don't have a choice, but have to put up with it.

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  • NatureGrrl
    NatureGrrl Member Posts: 1,367
    edited April 2010

    Lisa, I know what you mean, I defintely felt like h-e-double-toothpicks when treatment was all done, but I guess I don't like the word "battle" because it implies things that I don't believe are true for me.  It's symantics, really, and sometimes the words bother me more than other times, but most of the time they just seem inadequate. 

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  • chainsawz
    chainsawz Member Posts: 3,473
    edited April 2010

    On another bc support site for stage IV they refer to it as "wrestling alligators", which I love!  Each time I go into the ring, I may or may not win but I am there to kick butt and take names!   I do agree that cancer doesn't care if your attitude is positive or not.......but for me it is about the will to try and do anything and everything to beat it down. 

    My co-workers wife had stage 0 bc, but she refused to do any type of treatment.  No lumpectomy, no chemo, nothing.  She didn't want to lose any of her breast or hair.....and no amount of convincing from him would change her mind.  He would talk to me to find other ways to help convince her to do something about the cancer, but to no avail.  Now it is so progressed, its just a matter of time before she passes.  I wish she had accepted treatment, because she might have been able to grow old :<  

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  • Lowrider54
    Lowrider54 Member Posts: 2,721
    edited April 2010

    Being of the Vietnam age group, I sorta look at it like that.  It is there in front of you everyday...you have no idea why...you keep throwing things at it in hopes it may stop for awhile...there are lots of drugs to aleviate the pain, depression etc...you watch your friends die...people alienate you when you come home from surgery/treatment...no one raises a victory flag...and no matter what you do or where you go, it is with you for the rest of your life.  Despite all the best efforts, it cannot be won. 

    I am living with breast cancer, as best I can for as long as I can.  I look at life differently and I embrace every day. 

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  • otter
    otter Member Posts: 6,099
    edited April 2010

    Lisa and I seem to be in the minority on this.  I, too, find the word "battle" to be the most fitting term for what I've experienced.

    Maybe it's because I'm okay with all the imagery concerning weapons and war.  I really did see cancer as an "enemy", and my treatment as a battle I waged against it.

    There was a sudden discovery that something unwanted had "invaded" my body.  I had a treatment team (mine had a "leader" -- my breast surgeon), and we developed a treatment strategy, with successive stages in the plan.  All along, there have been odds/probabilities and predictions -- sometimes, out of necessity, based on insufficient "intelligence". 

    Each step along the way, we paused to reassess things and see if the next stage needed to be modified.  The tests and scans and clinical exams were done to evaluate the location and strength/size of the "enemy".  Every treatment, to me, was a sort of "battle" in which there were injuries and collateral damage and a long recovery/rehabilitation period.

    Even now, there are still periodic tests and exams (surveillance) to see if the "enemy" is holed up somewhere or is quietly re-arming for another attack.  Sometimes these things end quickly; other times, they simmer for decades with occasional flare-ups.

    When I see an obituary or news article announcing that someone has died after a "long battle with cancer," I feel a sense of familiarity.  Dealing with cancer and its treatment really is a struggle -- fatigue, nausea, hair loss, weakness, and all the rest.  For me, the word "battle" just seems to fit.

    otter 

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  • gracejon
    gracejon Member Posts: 972
    edited April 2010

    Whatever the adjective/verb one uses their diagnosis and treatment, I can not say they are wrong.  I've been slashed and poisoned but will not ever criticize what others have done and been through with their own personal experience.  I honestly would have been just as frightened by any diagnosis of breast cancer.  I was pretty darned frightened when I received my diagnosis of skin cancer even though it was a very favorable skin cancer diagnosis.  I freaked at breast cancer also.  I had some HUGE quarrels with insurance and some of my reconstruction docs.  I guess one might call it a battle.  I did not.  I called myself a victim and refused to be victimized by insurance administration and the like.  I am pleased that I have had very positive outcomes at my finish line.  I did not like any of it.  Diagnosis sucked, surgery sucked bigger and chemo sucked most of all.  I guess if I fought anything, I fought the fear and I won mostly.  The game still goes on and I still have to sit on fear and smother him at times.  Regardless, batttle, game victim or anything else,  it really doesn't make me upset.  Perhaps earlier in my travels it may have but not now.

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  • shokk
    shokk Member Posts: 1,763
    edited April 2010

    Hey Jader..........maybe you don't like the term "battle" because it implies an end.........which for us that have been dx for a while realize that there is no end game..........about a year after my dx and treatment I was told that Insurance Companies classify "breast cancer" as one of the "incurable" cancers.........that once you have it you pretty much have it the rest of your life......even if it stays in "remission" or NED (a term that I don't care for because if you are not in cancer world no one knows what you are talking about)............and many women in their hast to remove the bc from their bodies will remove the breast or both breast thinking that will take care of their problem which of course as us "oldies" know that is not the case...........

    This is why I don't do the "causes" anymore..........the walks, the fund raisers.........the whole "find a cure"........I don't believe that there will ever be a "cure".........that is not how we are going to find a way to save our lives........we need find a "once we have bc how to keep it from advancing to mets"..........how to we "contain" it..........

    I can tell you are tired.........we all are.........I think any of us that have been around since '05 know that this so called battle is never going to end for us.........that we will always going to be "monitor".........that there will always be cancer marks that are up.........that there are always going to be scans........that there will always be another test to be done to see where in the hell bc is going to show up "this time".............Shokk

    I see that Lynn Redgrave's bc has return and she is "battling" again..........

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  • coss
    coss Member Posts: 48
    edited April 2010

    When I read an obituary that says they died after a long battle with cancer it conjures up an image of a sickly person consumed with doctors appointments, pain, nausea, baldness,etc.  Yet a lot of  people diagnosed with cancer are fortunate enough to live many years with decent quality of life even if cancer wins out in the end.  So to say they battled and then died makes me feel sorry for them and their depressing lives. Not the way I'd want to be remembered.

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  • konakat
    konakat Member Posts: 6,085
    edited April 2010

    Coss when you're stage IV a lot of the time you are consumed with dr appts, nausea, baldness, and pain. It's just the way it is.

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  • 3katz
    3katz Member Posts: 1,264
    edited April 2010
    I have to agree with otter & Lisa - BTW - very well written, otter. This is a battle and I really don't know how else to describe it.
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