The ‘Undaunted’ Die Too

I e-mailed the following to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer at 1:10 a.m. this morning. I guess I was angry. I know I couldn't sleep.

I have just resolved to spend October 2007 (when Breast Cancer Awareness Month rolls around again) cruising the Nile, hiking the pilgrim trail on the Japanese island of Shikoku, or camping out in a cave in the Cascades—anything to avoid having to read more drivel like Susan Paynter served up in this morning’s (October 25) column on breast cancer.

The worst sentence in the entire column, in my opinion, was this comment about a friend of Paynter's who had recently returned to work after cancer treatment: “But I know from her eyes and her laugh that she’s going to make it.”

No, Susan, you don’t know that she is going to make it. (If by “make it” you mean survive her cancer and live many years without a recurrence.) Her doctor doesn’t know if she is “going to make it”—no one does.

What you mean, I imagine, is that you HOPE she is going to make it.

But what if she doesn’t? What if her cancer comes back? What if it kills her? Will that be her fault?

I ask these questions because that idea is implied, if not quite stated, in another phrase Paynter uses to describe her friend: “a battle-worn but undaunted survivor of the cancer wars.” And I ask again, does her friend deserve to survive because she faced her cancer with such a great attitude? And would she deserve to die if she had been “daunted” by her cancer? If her attitude had been less courageous—if she had whined, complained, or thrown plates?

If courage, humor, a great attitude, love of life, and a generous spirit were enough to conquer breast cancer, then Surain af Sandeberg would not have died in 2002. Jill Bennett would not have died in 2004. And Dana Sigley would not have died this past May.

But those character traits are not enough. And we do a disservice to women like these when we imply, as Susan Paynter did, that a great attitude will conquer breast cancer.

In the last months of their lives, Surain, Jill and Dana showed me and many other women who are living with cancer how to face death. Not by being undaunted heroes, but by being human.

Read Susan Paynter's column

Read about Surain af Sandeberg

Read Jill Bennett's obituary

Read Dana Sigley's obituary

Comments

[Alex Roberts]

You spoke for me, too, Jeanne. Add Eunice Mast's (d.1993) name to that list of exemplars. -ALR

[ljg]

Talking about things that make you nuts....I find the phrase "battling cancer" overwhelmingly offensive. Does this mean that if you die you didn't fight hard enough?

Problem is I can't find a better way to describe the experience. Drives me crazy.

[Jeanne]

I know. I've been chewing on this question--and writing about it--for years now: what's a better way to say "battling cancer" or "battle with cancer"?

I really don't like the touchy-feely alternatives, like "dance with cancer," although I have used that one once in awhile.

And then sometimes I come full circle and think, well, it IS a battle.

Jeanne