The Myth of "Beating Cancer"

The American Cancer Society ad that runs constantly on CNN makes me cringe.

"I used to have cancer. I beat it"

It's disrespectful to those at Stage IV, and those who have died.

Saying a person "beat" cancer implies that cancer can be overcome by personal effort, and conversely, it implies that those with incurable disease, or those who died, didn't try hard enough.

Treating cancer is like playing a game of solitaire: some games can be won, some never can be won, and some games that could have been won are lost because of decisions made along the way.

The thing is, sometimes you are faced with a decision on which card to play, and you have no information to guide you. You guess. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, and you'll never know if making a different decision would have affected the ultimate outcome.

Like Solitaire, in cancer you play the cards you're dealt. It's mostly luck, and a bit of skill, but sometimes winning is just not possible. No one can beat a hand that can't be won.

So let's stop talking about winners and losers, people who beat cancer and people who lose their battles. It's a delusion, a self protection mechanism, to deal with the terror of a deadly disease that is, for the most part, beyond our control.

In truth, some are lucky, and some are not. Changing those odds does not depend on the willpower or effort or attitude of an individual patient. The only way those odds will change, for everyone, is through a commitment to research and universally available, cutting edge care.