The many Metaphors of Cancer
(and why they’re not ALL bad)
It’s almost a year since I wrote my first blog about cancer, and although I’ve been through every emotion in the book since then (not to mention the bodily motions), a thought I still come back to regularly is something I observed right from the beginning: I hate all these cancer metaphors.
To summarise my original blog post: it’s common parlance to talk about cancer patients as “fighting” their disease, but it doesn’t feel like a fight in reality — it’s less active, and more “I’ll just lie here and let them pump toxic drugs into me because they’re telling me that without this treatment I will die.” To label those who survive as “winners” can seemingly imply that people who die from their disease somehow didn’t fight hard enough. (Don’t even get me started on the notion of bravery.)
Another metaphor I’ve come across which feels cliched to me is the use of the word “journey” to describe an individual’s experience of cancer diagnosis, treatment and aftermath. Again, there’s something about the implicit positivity of this word which makes me squirm. ‘Journey’ is suggestive of purpose, adventure and destination. I’m yet to meet anyone who chose their own cancer out of a glossy brochure, and now that I’m in remission I’m learning the reality of life post-treatment: there’s always a chance of the disease coming back, or of complications resulting from treatment, so you can never know for sure that you’ve “arrived.”
Of course, other people with similar experiences to mine might feel very differently about these metaphors; a good reason to keep language as straightforward as possible and not try to force our own imagery on others. I’m a big fan of the Metaphor Menu by Lancaster University, which suggests a range of different ways to think about cancer and our relationship to it. (In case you are wondering, the ones that resonate for me are the stone in the shoe, and the unwelcome lodger. I am not yet ready to say nice things about my cancer, but if you are exchanging pleasantries with yours then good for you.)
As well as using the Metaphor Menu, I’ve found myself coining my own comparisons, such as “cancer feels like a dancing on a cliff edge with a partner you never wanted to meet.”* Doing this has made me realise that I don’t hate all such imagery per se; quite the opposite. Having worked in theatre all my life, I’m drawn to metaphors as a way of communicating complex ideas and as a powerful creative tool; but they have to be the right metaphors.
In February, when I was told that I needed a stem cell transplant, my Clinical Nurse Specialist explained that the language of a ‘battle’ can be useful in educating patients about how donor stem cells interact with the original ‘host’ DNA. With my permission, she characterised the various white blood cells as ‘frontline soldiers’, ‘generals’ etc and helped me to understand the role of the different types of cell, and what would happen when the donor cells were introduced. Both the desired effect (“Graft vs Leukaemia”) and the unwanted side effect of the transplant (“Graft vs Host Disease”) are couched in terms of the direct opposition, or fight, between the old and new cells.
Hearing this explanation, for the first time, I realised that while I was not a fighter, my treatment was a fight. The conflict was (and still is) taking place inside my cells. I’m not a soldier; I’m a battleground. Some may find this unsatisfyingly passive, but for me the acknowledgement of a certain powerlessness actually relieves any pressure to influence my own medical outcomes.
Over time I’ve come to understand that the notion of an internal fight in which one set of cells literally attacks, disarms or kills another set, is arguably not even a metaphor; it’s real. And far from being just “useful” language, it is the only language I have to articulate what’s happening inside my body. I’m still not comfortable with people congratulating me on my physical recovery, but if you’d like to give my donor lymphocytes a cheer for their achievements to date, please go right ahead.
*yes, fellow linguistics geeks, this one is (of course) a simile, not a metaphor.
