Our bodies are amazing. Some estimates suggest that a million times each day our immune systems destroy mutated cells which might otherwise have become cancerous. A million times! That equates to over 11 times every second. It's no surprise that some unseemly characters slip through the net, and even then various defense mechanisms are in place to prevent these rogue agents from implanting in tissue, organs or bones and forming a tumour. The cutting edge of cancer research is focused on immunotherapy; helping our bodies to fight and overcome cancer from within. The idea is that we effectively train our immune systems to better recognise cancer, and to overcome the ways that cancers evolve to withstand, bypass or otherwise survive our body’s efforts to destroy them.
It strikes me as fact that our bodies are battlefields, under constant attack from a variety of forces; viruses, bacteria, mutations in our DNA, and our immune system is the defending army, staunchly repelling these attacks with its impressive arsenal of weaponry. This fight is constant, and we are barely even aware of it; the odd cold, flu (or if we are unlucky - something more serious) being the only reminder that we are not invincible and our immune army is not impregnable. It is by no accident that our T cells or T lymphocytes are also known as ‘killer’ cells - they are the white blood cells responsible for recognising and destroying infected or cancerous cells.
So I find it interesting that some people in the cancer community take issue with the battle and war analogy, they dislike the use of language - frequently seen in the media - which connects cancer patients with their fight or battle against this terrible and relentless disease. The implication is that when the battle or fight is ‘lost’ it somehow reflects the feeling that they ‘haven’t fought hard enough’. I do see their point… if you can recollect or picture news story headlines about a famous person who has died of cancer, you are likely to imagine phrases such as: ‘Lost their long fight’ or ‘After a battle with cancer’ or ‘Fought hard, but succumbed eventually…’ or something similar. No-one would necessarily believe that our unnamed celebrity just gave up or couldn’t be bothered to try, but the argument is that this implication is unsaid but present due to the use of language.
If you think about it, our language is rich in metaphor and analogy, and battle and war imagery is ubiquitous. Catch up on sports stories: “Arsenal fought hard, but ultimately lost their semi-final battle against PSG” (apologies for the reminder, Arsenal fans). Read about a court case and hear about a battle fought, a victor congratulated and a loser punished - this is, of course, right and just. But this imagery even seeps into the parlance of everyday, boring life; “Oh I’d better fight the temptation to eat another biscuit”, (a battle we frequently lose, if my multiple biscuit-munching habit is in any way similar to yours). We often talk about a battle of wills, or of a war against something or other.
Linking this back to cancer and its treatment, the options for patients include surgery (cutting), radiotherapy (burning), chemotherapy (poisoning)... all aggressive actions seen in millenia of human conflict. The sword fighting savagery of wars fought on foot or horse-back, the awful firebombing of WW2 and the napalming of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, the gas attacks of WW1 trench warfare. Even immunotherapy (training our bodies to fight) and hormone therapy (starving cancer cells) connect to the wider theme of violent conflict.
Therefore, I believe that this language is not just appropriate, but something I actively take ownership of; I want people to understand the overall battle and the smaller fights we have day to day as cancer patients. These range from fairly trivial and inconsequential - the battle to get a free parking space next to the cancer centre or whether to admit defeat and park further away and pay a couple of pounds; to the inconvenient and unpleasant - the fight to eat and keep down food when suffering from chemotherapy-induced nausea; to the profound - how to prevent being destroyed by an all consuming sense of sadness and doom when you realise that your lifespan has been reduced from a likely many decades to potentially several years or less.
It is a fight I am winning; I am feeling strong, supported and healthy. I am armed with knowledge and a proactive oncology team, and I know that several different lines of treatment are available to me if/when my current treatment loses its effectiveness. With regards to the mental battle, I am not succumbing either - my positivity and optimism is a weapon; I am not naive, I just have a lot to be thankful for and feel positive about.
So… if you ask me how I am doing, I will reply with the following: My body is a battlefield that is taking a battering from cancer, but I am bloody well fighting this disease and I will continue to fight for as long as my body and mind let me. I am fighting the good fight, and I’d like you to know that all of us cancer patients - currently growing by around 3000 a day in the UK - are doing the same.
