I was 15 when my mom told me that my grandpa Joe had died.
He was a lifelong smoker and had been living with a rare form of throat cancer that my family thought was long in remission. “Your grandpa lost his battle with cancer,” she said, struggling through sobs.
My grandfather was one of the toughest people I have ever met.
He enlisted in the Navy during the Korean War. With no formal education, he supported his family by ranching and trucking in rural Nebraska, living a hard life in support of those around him.
He was short-tempered, selfless, creative and jovial and the type of rough-and-tumble man we imagine when we hear the phrase “backbone of this country.” In short, he was not the sort of man to go down easy in a battle. He was a fighter.
For a long time after his death the phrase “lost his battle with cancer” left a bad taste in my mouth.
It was repeated incessantly at his funeral and visitation. I could not stop thinking how it was an insult against the strength of character my grandpa Joe possessed.
My grandpa was not a loser, and this terrible disease has reduced him to that in the minds of his closest loved ones.
That’s what is so unfair about the phrase “lost their battle with cancer.”
Being diagnosed with any form of cancer is not a battle and never was. Cancer is a powerful, insidious disease that appears at random throughout your body, growing and growing until you die.
Women who survive breast cancer had no greater will to live than those unfortunate ones who died. No romanticized force of will or desire to go on can prolong this brutal fight.
This is not a test of endurance where one only needs to give 110 percent to defeat the enemy. You cannot flex harder to dislodge a tumorous blockage restricting blood flow to the brain.
Beating cancer on the part of the victim is no more a game of skill than playing the lottery.
The only way to truly battle cancer is with powerful drugs, radiation and invasive surgery. The true warriors against cancer are the oncologists and nurses that wield these tools and the scientists that work tirelessly to find new treatments and cures.
My grandfather was no more a participant in the battle then a victim of collateral damage is in an armed conflict. He was a casualty of a larger conflict, one in which he had no control.
We should stop speaking about cancer in terms of winning and losing because it is unfair to those who do not survive. It’s demeaning to victims and meaningless to survivors.
We should congratulate the real troops on the front lines, the medical professionals, when someone survives, and not deride anyone as a loser when they die.
