Cancer as a gift. Oh, dear God.

I saw this article in the Guardian and I thought I'd post it here for discussion.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/jan/02/cancer-positive-thinking-barbara-ehrenreich

This is positive thinking gone mad. A whole culture has developed around cancer sufferers where upbeatness is mandatory even if you're puking and dying.

Seeing it as a challenge is great, but demanding that people act positive at all costs, is madness. Anger exists. Sadness exists. Keeping them down and pretending they are not there is like refusing to go to the toilet to take a shit.

 

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demanding? I don't think they are demanding anything. Aren't they just giving views on their own experience and how it could help others?

I know if I were suffering an illness I would want to see the bright side, and there always is one.

 

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There is nothing positive or bright about cancer.

 

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You HAVE to look on the bright side. It could always be worse. I'd rather have breast cancer than ALS

 

Of course it could always be worse, but it could also be better.

 

Yes, and if you have cancer (or some other disease) you try and make your situation better. Positive thinking helps make it better. Looking on the bright side helps.

Going into denial and not dealing with it will never make it better.

 

She's not attacking positive thinking per se. She's attacking a culture that insists on positive thinking at all times.

 

I guess I don't see it. One survivor wrote a book about cancer being a gift. I don't see that as a culture that insists on anything. :shrug:

 

Of course people must remain ruthlessly determined and steadfast, but that doesn't mean deluding yourself into thinking that it is a blessing to have gotten cancer.

 

I agree, its silly to look at it as a blessing. But you have to look on the bright side!!!! and again, there is ALWAYS a bright side.

 

Cancer is just one of the many thousands of ways to die. Ain't no reason to hate or fear it than there is to hate or fear any other way.

Most of y'all are young, but let me assure y'all ......you ARE going to die one day. Ain't no gettin' around it yet that we know of.

Baron Max

 

see, there's the bright side. :thumbsup: You could be an old fart named Baron Max

 

No one should tell someone else that cancer is a blessing for them. But if someone who has or had cancer thinks it was for them they may very well be correct. The experience may have made them face things about themselves and life (and God) and friends and family they never would have otherwise. They might break patterns that kept them suffering for years, which they would simply have continued if they'd never gotten cancer. Or some other setback, disease, accident, disaster.

If you use this idea of blessing to shut off and suppress other reactions, I think that is sick. But the truth is catastrophic illnesses can and even do bring about positive realizations and changes.

But if you got cancer Norsefire, I would never, ever come and say

Oh, it's a blessing.

You would get my sympathy and best wishes for recovery. The positive side, if there is one, should come out of your experience, not get tossed in your lap by someone else. And I did say IF.

So the writer of the book may indeed be quite correct that it was a blessing for her.

 

People who are diagnosed with cancer need special care. The whole person needs to be treated; not just the disease. Their feelings have to be acknowledged and reckoned with. Their family's fears and needs must be treated too. Positive thinking is a very important part of the treatment. A person must try to visualize the medicine doing what it is supposed to do, and visualize their healing.

Facing a life and death challenge can be an attitude transformation, (I have witnessed some pretty stubborn ass holes transform) but being told to accept cancer as a gift is absurd. I agree with the author about that.

I suffered through cancer 14 years ago. I am better off health-wise because of it. I had a punk immune system and was often anemic, but the chemotherapy not only cured me of cancer, it "re-set" my immune system, I have never been anemic since and I hardly ever catch a cold or flu. I wouldn't call that a gift of cancer though - - just a side effect in my favor.

The author, Barbara, mentioned Deepak Chopra. Let me say this: Alternative medicine is a good choice for some people for some things, but a person should never choose alternative medicine to treat cancer unless it's combined with traditional treatment. Treating cancer with holistic medicine may prolong your life a little bit, but it will not cure you.

One in five women will get breast cancer. The treatment might not be a piece of cake, but it is curable. If you get it, don't be lazy. Take the cure: surgery, radiation, chemotherapy. Some day it will just be a memory. Be selfish for a spell and put yourself first. Think positive.

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It seems that those people are dreaming up bright sides that are not there.

 

That's exactly what they seem to be doing..

 

I don't think you've read the book. I haven't either. But I have been through the process of cancer with a family member and I can tell you that it can be a blessing, just as other kinds of serious adversity can be. No one should be told their cancer is a blessing or even ALSO a blessing. But many do find, for themselves, that it can be.

 

I haven't read the book, I'm just commenting on the examples given in this thread.

 

Reminds me allot of....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_3lMpSDqMQ

 

How is looking on the bright side being in denial? I think refusing treatment and/or laying in bed all day having a pity party is much much worse.