Cancer is no longer a special case

I can’t help question why my illness draws more sympathy than others

Why are cancer patients so special? The Pink Runs, the White Ribbons, the GoFundMe pages. The fluffy blankets, the overpriced commercial “care packages”, the cooing podcasts.

“God, aren’t you amazing? You’re so brave.”

“You’re an inspiration.”

“Anything you need, just ask.”

I think all of this stems from the lingering terror that we have inherited when it comes to the Big C. The inevitable painful death that caused everyone to whisper the word, in case saying it out loud would make it contagious. Despite the fact that there have always been plenty of other fatal illnesses around, which were actually contagious. Obviously, tuberculosis once carried huge stigma and was cloaked in euphemism and denial. But the advent of effective treatments seems to have erased those ghosts. I don’t think that someone diagnosed with tuberculosis today gets the same head-tilt/sad-face reaction as a ‘cancer-head’ and they certainly don’t get the same level of saccharine sympathy.

Cancer causes one-third of all deaths and affects nearly every family. But there are plenty of other illnesses that cause equal suffering and are far more likely to kill you in the short-term. I am finding it harder and harder to understand how we can live alongside people with significant metabolic disease, or brittle asthma, or severe neurological disorders and fail to empathise with them as much as we do with people living with cancer. Their risk of waking up dead, as they say, is actually significantly higher than those with malignant disease.

I have friends with much greater life challenges than me and yet they feel the need to apologise for discussing their problems, because “sure it’s nothing compared to what you’ve been through”. There is a diminution of all other illnesses when cancer is around. It is at the top of the sympathy food chain and soaks up much of the public discourse around illness and distress.

I have moved, for the moment, from being someone with “terminal” cancer to someone with a chronic illness. (The quotation marks are mine; I meet all the criteria for terminal cancer, I just happen to disagree with the classification). I no longer attend the oncology ward every two weeks, with its gorgeous hand-painted mural and fancy reclining chairs. No more free coffee and fresh scones, no more avid attention to my skin/bowels/urine/platelet count.

I now attend a clinic staffed by equally kind and skilful professionals, but which serves a cohort of patients who are not traditionally offered the fluffy blankets. There are no daffodils in the hepatology outpatient department. Instead, there is a rather grim display of fake livers at varying degrees of cirrhotic change, with an unspoken but loudly heard ‘told-you-so’ vibe to them. I cannot help but feel the need to tell everyone in the waiting room that I am here because of my cancer (await hushed murmurs of sympathy) and not because I ate or drank too much. My cirrhosis is caused by all the treatments I have had over the years, not all the treats.

And so I am also falling into the trap of considering cancer to be a special case, a free pass to access all the positive vibes and gushing good wishes. I intermittently bemoan the fact that I haven’t actually milked my diagnosis enough; there are freebies I haven’t cashed in, Late Late Toy Show tickets I haven’t inveigled, expensive trips I haven’t been #gifted. But I cannot stop myself from thinking about all those terrible life experiences that people go through that the world either blithely ignores, or else downright denigrates the person for finding themselves in that position.

Bad things happen to people all the time.

Fathers drive over their toddler children in their own driveways.

Mothers watch their sons murder their daughters, then kill themselves.

Things happen to children that I cannot even begin to think about.

Living with (and even dying from) cancer is potentially one of the least bad things that can happen. And yet we have elevated it to some supreme serene space where all sins are forgiven and no sympathy is spared. I am not sure that is actually helpful, either to the cancer patients or to everyone struggling with other ongoing serious illnesses. We are feeding into an outdated myth, that cancer is a death sentence and being diagnosed with it is everyone’s worst nightmare. No wonder the fear and silence around it continues, despite the significant life-changing progress that has been made in its treatment in recent decades.

I accept that this is not going to be a popular opinion and selling a ‘cancer isn’t that bad’ story will never be easy. But I think it is worth considering the spiral of doom that we are perpetuating by continuing to tilt our heads.