Malignant Metaphor by Alanna Mitchell

In CancerLand we talk a lot about fear. And the fear of pain, nausea, chemo, surgery, exhaustion and the one million accompanying losses which are legitimate to a cancer diagnosis or to being a cancer caregiver.

But there is another kind of cancer fear that is widely felt though less spoken about. Alanna Mitchell names that fear and dissects it powerfully in her new book, Malignant Metaphor,

published this week by ECW Press in Toronto.

The subtitle of her book is, “confronting cancer myths”. And there are many. Mitchell was compelled to write about this after two family members had serious cancer diagnoses. She learned, as most readers here know, about the confusion and inconsistency and the struggle to get straight answers. But Mitchell also took on the surrounding trauma and stigma.

Malignant Metaphor covers the implied blame that accrues to cancer patients. The sense that cancer happens because someone didn’t do something right: you didn’t eat right, exercise right, express emotions right. She calls cancer myology an “irreconcilable trifecta of blame and anxiety.” 

She looks at the cultural beliefs that are now mostly unconscious but which, nevertheless, control and shape our thinking: “For as long as humans have written words, we have portrayed disease as an indictment of character, proof of a secret sin, or as punishment by an unseen but powerful force.”

This is a book for cancer caregivers and family, and especially for professional caregivers and students. Examining these myths and deep beliefs will help all of us to change the system of care in CancerLand.

What You Believe In...

A quote that I love goes like this: "What you believe in must be bigger than what you are afraid of." I heard a woman named Kim Klein say that in a conference on fund raising many years ago. She was telling a story about how she overcame her fear of solicitation--asking powerful people for money. She said that one day in a fit of terror, about to approach a big CEO, it hit her that she really did believe in the women she was trying to help at her DV shelter, so that had to be bigger than her fear. And her fear decreased that day.

I have applied that quote in my life many times: at work, in relationships, in social settings and now I'm thinking about health and wellness and cancer. Do I believe in God? Goodness? the power of the body? the balance of the universe? Ok, can I remember that when I am afraid?

This week a friend who knows I love that quote pointed it out to me again. I have been wrestling with my passion about caregiving and this cancer advocacy work--do I dare put myself out there? really step up to the plate, and the microphone, with Love in the Time of Cancer? And my friend Martha said, "Diane, what you believe in has to be bigger than what you are afraid of."

My own advice to others hiding in plain sight. That makes me believe in God. And his sense of humor.

Baseball and Safely Home

Sports, like religion, offer these consolations: A diversion from the routine of daily living; a model of coherence and clarity; a heroic example to admire and emulate, and a sense of drama and conflict in which nobody dies.

In baseball we begin and end at home. Home plate is not fourth base. Our goal in this game is to get home and be safe. Home is a concept rather than a place. Home implies safety, accessibility, freedom, comfort. It’s where we learn to be both part of and separate. The object in baseball is to go home, and to be safe.

When a runner charges home we lean forward to see the home plate umpire slash his arms downward signaling that the runner who may have crashed onto the ground in, in fact, safe. Isn’t that what we all want? I do. In my daily life I want whatever is bigger than me and whoever is judging me to see how fast I run and how precariously I slide and to say, as I slip and slide, “She’s safe!”

Those who believe, whose faith is strong, accept that umpire/God at his gesture and stand up relieved. Some, like me, despite wanting it are afraid to believe or struggle to trust. I have --over and over-- sensed that “safe” signal, but I am unbelieving. I run the bases again, skidding and scuffing. Again he signals, “Safe!”, but again I go to bat. What baseball offers that life does not is the agreement that we will believe it when we are told that we are home and that we are safe.

Can I see Clearly now?

Our deepest wounds are the lens through which we see the world.

--from my journal June 5 1994

I sing along with the radio: “I can see clearly now, the pain is gone. I can see all obstacles in my way. All of the dark clouds have passed me by. I can see bright, bright sunshiny day.”

It is a song that can bring tears to my eyes. It is a song that is –for me—about recovery and healing. I am so aware this week of my own wounds and how they distort how I see John and how I see myself in this relationship. I know that anyone would be afraid of cancer and that any caregiver fears the person they love will get sick, sicker, or die. This is not about turning a molehill into a mountain. This is not about turning a stomach ache into cancer. It’s about cancer being cancer and being life threatening. But still, but even with that, how much do I lose my --and our --good life to my old beliefs that I will be abandoned and left? How much do I assume that will happen because I am not enough? How often do I set me aside and wait for pain and grief to descend and when they don’t I go and shake the fear tree to bring it faster, bring it now, so that I can have the familiar terror?

Oh enough already. It’s about woundedness and beliefs. I am a woman of faith and I believe in God but these beliefs are something else. Maybe this is a kind of blasphemy—I have created Gods of Woundedness that I worship and serve before my God of love. Oh God, I am ready to relinquish this belief in false Gods and let you love me now.