Good piece.

Tina

So well said   I have told friends and family if they say she lost her battle or any other war analogy, I will come down from the heavens or up from the depths and there will be hell to pay.    I want no pity or folks feeling sorry for me.  My epitath - she lived, she died, she had a pretty good run

Nel

Brendatrue, thank you so much for posting this. It was well written, and I concur with the author's outlook when it comes to cancer.

I never framed having mbc as a war or battle, tho respect anyone who chooses to approach it that way. The way to deal with mbc that worked for me was to look at many areas of my life and see what changes or adjustments I could make to aid in healing. This wasn't something that happened overnight or in a month. It involved everything from downsizing some things, decluttering, adding more things I wanted to do and cutting out what I felt obligated to do. It involved my relationships with others. It involved my spiritual, emotional, physical and mental states as well. It was/is a comprehensive approach to dealing with the whole of me. Words like battle and war were too simplistic of an approach for my way of thinking.

I don't think we need a couple of all inclusive words to describe what we go thru as if it can be wrapped up in one tiny phrase.

I too am uncomfortable with a war analogy. I show up, I do the best I can. I'm OK with the journey metaphor but can understand those who aren't.

Once again, I show up, I live as best I can and I'll die as best I can. Lots of people around me are surprised and shocked that I'm so matter of fact about this, but there's nothing I can do to change the situation. With luck I'll live well for a long time. With no luck I'll die soon. So far I've had pretty good luck. [considering the suckiness of getting cancer in the first place]

You know, now that I write this, I do like thinking of this diagnosis as bad luck. Because that's what it is. I feel for those women who have 'done everything right' and can't understand how this happened to them. I don't think of cancer as anything I did. It's totally an accident. No one knows why our cells turn on us but there it is. It happened. I move on.

My best wishes to John McCain and to all of us.

Brendatrue - thanks for posting this commentary. It really resonated with me.

Brenda, thank you for posting this, it made me cry.  Regardless of which side of the aisle you are on, John McCain is a true American hero and I wish we could send that message to him.

I view it as living with cancer. Often thumbing my nose at cancer by having a good time anyway. Enduring. And if someday (in the far distant future, of course) someone says I lost a battle, I will come back to haunt them.

Hello, Maire. Your emotions about your recent mets diagnosis are familiar. It may be hard to believe, but you can get through them and come to a place where you feel more calm and even happy. You might want to join the bone mets thread and whatever thread matches your treatment, among others. Let us know if you need help.

I liked the article, too, Brenda. The author makes so many good points. The perky positive approach was foisted upon us by a society that does not want to picture women going thru the ugliness or despair of this disease. We must dare to be ourselves about the matter, and be true to our feelings.

Society also likes to minimize the issues of women, including health matters. Again, we must try not to fall into the societal trap of making everyone else feel good about "our" cancer. We must own what we are going thru and what our experiences are. Without apology.

The perky positive attitude we are expected to have makes FAR TOO LIGHT of breast cancer. Making this a cheerful disease minimizes it. There is most often grit, determination and perseverance involved in going thru treatment and beyond. Society doesn't want to describe women with these tougher characteristics that are more often attributed to men.

If women were really honest with themselves, they might admit that too much energy is spent on an outward appearance that "hey, I got this!" "Oh! This is a walk in the park!" "Wow! What a gift!"

I personally reject the insistence that I be outwardly cheerful. I have a good life, I am in no way sour or despondent, But I choose how I spend my energy and its not going to be spent living up to someone else's expectations.

As my "name" suggests, I do believe this to be a battle. In my life's experience, I have come across those who view each new challenge as a negative and some who view it in a different light. To me, the "fight" is more of a will to at least step up and take the challenge rather than to just throw my hands up and say "I can't". I am more than aware of the fact that at some time I will more than likely be in the position to decide that "I won't" but somehow that still gives me the feeling that it is my choice. Saying that enough is enough is still a win in my book.

WTF, just a couple of passages from the article Brenda posted. These are some of the attitudes Barbara Ehrenreich came across. We are women, we must be pretty and sweet all the time and you cannot use cancer as an excuse to let yourself go, UGGG!!

"cancer is your ticket to your real life. Cancer is your passport to the life you were truly meant to live." And if that is not enough to make you want to go out and get an injection of live cancer cells, she insists, "Cancer will lead you to God. Let me say that again. Cancer is your connection to the Divine."

The effect of all this positive thinking is to transform breast cancer into a rite of passage – not an injustice or a tragedy to rail against but a normal marker in the life cycle, like menopause or grandmotherhood. Everything in mainstream breast cancer culture serves, no doubt inadvertently, to tame and normalise the disease. Indeed, you can defy the inevitable disfigurements and come out, on the survivor side, actually prettier, sexier, more feminine. In the lore of the disease – shared with me by oncology nurses as well as by survivors – chemotherapy smoothes and tightens the skin and helps you lose weight, and when your hair comes back it will be fuller, softer, easier to control, and perhaps a surprising new colour. These may be myths, but for those willing to get with the prevailing programme, opportunities for self-improvement abound. Breast cancer is a chance for creative self-transformation – a makeover opportunity, in fact.

Thanks Brendatrue for posting the link to the article from the Guardian by Barbara Ehrenreich. 

The last paragraph of the article was the perfect summation.

"Breast cancer, I can now report, did not make me prettier or stronger, more feminine or spiritual. What it gave me, if you want to call this a "gift", was a very personal, agonising encounter with an ideological force in American culture that I had not been aware of before – one that encourages us to deny reality, submit cheerfully to misfortune and blame only ourselves for our fate."

With that said - I am certainly not advocating against having a positive attitude.  I try to be as positive as possible simply because I feel better when I think positive. I'm all about feeling good for the rest of my life.