Going through cancer treatments is traumatic. If you have cancer, there are days when you bare-knuckle your way through with clenched teeth and a determined “Don’t get in my way” stare. What helps us cope is keeping a journal, writing down what is going on, what our doctors are saying, what we are thinking, and how we are physically and emotionally doing with all of this.
Those who have cancer don’t need words of sympathy. They need empathy, hugs, and presence.
When we have cancer, we no longer rush about in our daily lives trying to maximize the work we get done, to get from Point A to Point Z as quickly as possible. We linger with others, ponder, sit, reflect with a second cup of coffee. Ponder some more. The destination no longer seems as important as what we are experiencing on the journey, and our journey now includes cancer. Our goal is to be present to this moment and take care of others who are suffering the best we can.
We know that children get cancer. It’s in the news often enough. Every time we hear of another child with cancer, it troubles our hearts and makes us question the goodness of the universe. I know, goodness isn’t a concern of the universe; nor is fairness, but it’s still how I react. When I was undergoing radiation, the therapists put cutouts of different animals on the cherry tree painted on the ceiling to give kids something to discover as they go through treatments.
Courses on narrative medicine are offered in some premed programs and medical schools. They are an important addition to the scientific coursework because they remind future doctors and nurses that they, and their patients, are human beings who have emotions that need to be tended to. The courses train medical people how to listen and interpret what patients say, as well as notice when patients are reluctant to share something. These courses aren’t offered at every medical school, and generally there is only one course. But it creates an awareness of the gift of listening that strengthens as the years go on.
Where It Hurts: Dispatches from the Emotional Frontlines of Medicine, 2026, ed. by Donna Bulseco, Intima Journal.
What I love about this book, among many reasons, is that it shares the emotions of the people who cope with stress, fatigue, and burnout as they care for people, day after day, who are seriously ill. The accounts cover the gamut of care by doctors, nurses, EMTs, and therapists who speak of the emotional toll on them, especially when they have to deliver bad news. This is a side of our doctors and nurses that we seldom see.
Wouldn’t it be good if we could prevent cancer from starting? And wouldn’t it be amazing if we could detect the presence of cancer early enough so that everyone would be cured of cancer? I think so.
This is a renewed focus in cancer care. While most of our efforts today have two goals — stop people from dying, and continuing cancer research to find new ways of keeping people alive — it’s time to focus more attention on preventing people from getting cancer in the first place.
It’s oddly reassuring to rub elbows with famous people who had prostate cancer, like Dan Fogelberg, the soft-rock singer who grew up here in Peoria, Illinois. I can walk to the places he lived, went to high school, and to Bradley University where his dad was the band director and let him conduct a rehearsal when he was 14. Fogelberg’s songs like “Leader of the Band” and “Longer” were a mainstay of the soft-rock era of the 1970s, ’80s, and early ‘90s.
The same question dogs everyone who gets cancer: Where did it come from? It’s not a critical question because we already have cancer, and our focus is on getting rid of it.
Yet I wanted to know. If my cancer came from an outside source and is environmentally-caused, like exposure to a lawn herbicide or a crop pesticide, which seems to be a problem in agricultural areas, especially in Iowa and Illinois, then I want to stay away from it. Were there industrial carcinogens in my drinking water from fracking? Maybe a pathogen snuck in through a cut in my skin.
I am delighted that my new essay was published today by the Chautauqua Journal.
It’s called “Unmasking In the Monastery.” This makes me so happy!
https://www.chautauquajournal.com/post/unmasking-in-the-monastery
Happy Holy Fools Day! (I’m serious.)
Mark
While I’ve read quite a few memoirs by women about their breast or ovarian cancers, I haven’t found many men who were willing to write even an essay about their prostate cancer, and I think the reason is that prostate cancer hits men where their pride resides.
