Mind Your Language: Why Words Matter
Comments
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Excellent article by Marie Ennis-O'Connor: HERE
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Lukewarm on this article. Various reasons.
I don't care about battle terminology and the reason why is that I think too much time will be spent trying to find wording that will please everyone. How often does that work out? Plus, when you go through chemo, your body almost feels like it was in a fight against someone or something. I don't think the meds for high blood pressure or diabetes beat people down as much as some hard core chemo does. I'm not trying to make value judgements on various diseases, I'm just saying chemo is harsh. That's all.
The anecdote about the doc and the cancer patient where the doc said the first line treatment failed. Geez! He said the treatment failed. And the whole paragraph continues to go on like the doc was being so insensitive because the woman felt like she had failed. He never said that. That is not about words hurting. That is more about comprehension as to what actually was said. Even if he couched his phrases with stuff like "Now, look, it's not your fault or anything, but the treatment is not working..." would that have made her feel better? I'm thinking she would still feel pretty crappy because the treatment didn't take care of the cancer.
Now the thing about an obit saying "lost her battle with cancer" or "passed after a long fight with cancer..." well, it's informative about what the cause of death was, at least. The families generally state the info. they want in the obit, so if the family were to say "please don't use the fight/battle wording" they could probably come up with whatever suited them. I figure if the families don't mind it written that way, who cares what I think. Personally, I'd favor a straightforward way like, "She died from breast cancer." In my mind I always translate any BC obit into,"She died from BC because THERE IS NO CURE."
Traveltext, I'm not trying to negate your liking of the article. Nope, not at all. I just had an alternate assessment of it. I think a lot of writers pen these kind of pieces to create their "look how sensitive I can be about cancer issues" personas. Yeah, o.k., whatever.
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Good critical points elimar. I think I liked the article because it reminded me of the Johns Hopkins study that found luck a big contributor to getting bc. As the writer notes: "In other words, a major contributing factor to cancer is in fact beyond anyone's control." And how many times do you read members here say it's all a "crap shoot".
I'm always interested in BCO members' interest in statistics when they are trying to determine individual prognoses; one of the big hit threads here of recurrence rates runs for very many pages. And I can see that hope is one of the big emotions guiding our desire to live disease free for as long as possible. But, if you think you are living in a battle zone, surely this is stressful and extra stress is not great for your outcome.
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I'm am with the author on not going heavy on the blame. At least for now. There's just too much we don't know yet. But if we do, one day, know a LOT more about causal relationships and disease, then there may come a time where we will have to be much more responsible for our own health than we are currently expected to be. As we come to know more, the elements of "luck" and "chance" and "crap shoot" will diminish.
While this latest finding out of Johns Hopkins lets two-thirds of us off the hook, it is too bad that time and money was spent on a study where "luck" was the conclusion. We are not closer to any real understanding then, are we? Maybe they need to look harder.
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I too am with the author, but read on as I also agree with the dissenters. I believe that war (military) metaphors include winners and losers, picking whose side God should be on, destruction all around, and of course assigning blame for starting, ending, and the weapons used. Questions: Do wars ever cure and heal? Does the price of war fall too heavily on victims of war, those who never chose to be at war, but too often are bombed out of existence? Are the health/longevity benefits inversely related to the strength and duration of ammunitions used in the fight to extend life?
Metaphors for living and dying with cancer or any disease will certainly be prevalent, but we get to choose the metaphor. Staying strong and being courageous are the flip side to being present and living life here and now. The later also takes strength and courage but the thinking process is very different and that can make a big difference in the choices made. We do not always have to choose to go 'in harm's way.' Are fighters afraid of letting down family and clinicians if they choose not to go in harms way? "Recent work has found that patients encouraged to "fight" may feel that they have to suppress their emotional distress and maintain a positive attitude to avoid upsetting family members—and clinicians." https://www.quora.com/Is-battle-always-an-appropriate-metaphor-to-describe-what-happens-when-we-deal-with-disease
For me, the bottom line is that each of us gets to decide which metaphor is chosen if and only if we know that there are options. Thanks for raising the question about which one I want to choose as well as asking which one my family and clinicians choose. I for one want all of us to be on the same page or at least know which one we have each chosen.
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