Twice Diagnosed With Cancer: Finding Peace Beyond the Battle Metaphor

A Cancer I Was Told Was “the One to Choose”

Then I asked myself, how would this apply to my life? What would be my “not enough”? Hiking the Swiss Alps when I was eighteen? Sailing the turquoise waters of Alaska? Eating steak frites in that hidden gem Parisian cafe? Without provocation, my mind turned to cancer, a diagnosis I have had twice. Apparently once wasn’t enough.

In 2004, after my internist found a suspicious nodule on my thyroid, I was diagnosed with early-stage thyroid cancer. When I met with the surgeon, he placed a comforting hand on my shoulder. “If I had to have cancer, this is the one I’d choose.” As if cancer was a fluffy cinnamon bun in an aromatic bakery. In that moment I felt unacknowledged but now understand why the doctor trivialized my 99% curable condition. Papillary carcinoma was, compared to other cancers, a piece of cake. It belonged in that bakery. My thyroid was surgically removed. I was put on thyroid hormone replacement. A year later, I had one round of radioactive iodine followed by seven days of isolation. I was bereft, seasick, and the treatment triggered extreme menopausal symptoms. Still, the doctors were right. Mine was the cancer to choose. With surgery and treatment in the rear-view mirror, the biggest challenge I faced was the daily management of thyroid levels.

Living With the Fear of a Second Diagnosis

Seventeen years passed without incident, at which time I faced another cancer diagnosis, this one more serious. Fortunately, it was a slow-growing, treatable cancer, also detected at an early stage. Surgery was curative, and while I’ve dodged two bullets, I’ve lost two organs—my thyroid gland and my uterus with all its bells and whistles. I depend on patches and pills to maintain vitality and must work twice as hard to shush the fear that ticks in my ear like a terminal tinnitus. Sinister cells are multiplying. Faster than you can imagine. Hiding in the wings. Cancer is an anonymous death threat, written in a reckless, unrecognizable hand.

In 1971, Richard Nixon launched his war on cancer, calling for a “total national commitment” and comparing the effort to the Apollo moon program. I barely noticed. I’d never known anyone with cancer and—thanks to the generous conceit of youth—believed it would stay that way. Five years later, I watched my grandfather’s hale, muscular body succumb to lung cancer, and some naively superstitious part of me still believed I had a free pass.

Rethinking the Language We Use About Cancer

After my second diagnosis, my sister suggested I drop Nixon’s outdated war metaphor, and instead, love the cancer out of my body. “I’m not sure cancer retreats by waging war against it,” she said. Would an oncologist tell me to love my cancer? After my recent surgery, my matter-of fact oncologist reported that in medical school she was taught to “hate the cancer more than she loved the patient.” Does hate outweigh love in the skewed cancer dialect we speak? Will loving my body protect me from a third cancer? Will it keep me from asking that perilous question—when is it coming back?

Susan Sontag, who recovered from two cancers in her forties and later died from complications of a third, warned in her 2007 book, Illness as Metaphor that cancer has been “spectacularly encumbered” by metaphor. She objected to the stigma that illness reveals moral failure, repressed emotion, or human weakness. How many times have you heard someone refer to cancer as a result of repressed anger? How many times have you been inclined to believe it? What if cancer simply is? Not metaphor. Not punishment. Rather a biological disturbance consisting of the uncontrolled division of abnormal cells.

When a Healthy Lifestyle Isn't Enough

Do I even fit the description of one who is at risk for cancer? I doubt I am the only person who has asked this question. Ever since my sophomore year at college, when I had the opportunity to hear Martha Graham speak, I have done my best to hold my body in love. When the American dance pioneer known as “The Mother of Modern Dance” said, “Your body is a temple. Do not take it for granted,” her words took hold. From that day forward I danced. Exercised. Ate organic. Relaxed. Attended to my mental health. And still, catastrophic cells caused me to forfeit valuable organs.

Beyond the Battle Metaphor

At night, I dream about intruders breaking into my home. I lose skis and boots and body parts in snow drifts. I awaken in pieces, trapped in terror. When I sit down to write, I experiment with words like fury, anger, betrayal. I delete them, retype them, delete them again. Cancer may be an invader, but I do not feel the need to arm myself. Still, what if a third cancer is lurking, waiting to take me down for good? Should I be preparing for a fight? If so, how? A recent Scientific American article suggests that our construct of cancer as a battleground is damaging to patients, families, and caregivers. Aggressive battleground language is everywhere—cancer cells are invaders, medical treatments are weapons, those who survive are warriors, and those who die have lost the battle. How easy it is to slip down the rabbit hole of mythical murmurings and merciless metaphors. Would it help to construct a new frame?

But what is cancer if not a battle? A transformative experience? A call for us to lean in? A painful passage designed to help us grow? At my sister’s suggestion, I shun the battleground reference and turn inward in search of the lexicon that will stabilize me, only to find unarticulated layers of sorrow and loss buried in my cells. It may take years for me to peel them back. I hope those years will be mine—to live, to love, and to make myself whole again.

Nixon’s grand goal was eradication, yet more than fifty years later cancer remains the second leading cause of death in the United States. The war did not end the disease, and the metaphor has not quieted the fear.

Choosing to Keep Moving Forward

With no emotion in her voice, the oncologist told me, following my surgery, that there is a two percent chance my most recent cancer will recur and, if it does, I will die. One cancer scare would have been enough in this lifetime, but perhaps two have taught me to focus twice as hard—not on fighting harder, not on loving perfectly, but on stepping into the morning, fastening my sandals, and opening the door.

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