Cancer Victim. Warrior. Fighter. Cancer-y words that don’t sit right.

Cancer victim, warrior, survivor - words that don't sit right

There are lots of words you hear in the cancer world that don’t sit right with me.

Victim, survivor, warrior, fighter …

Now that I am 18 months out of active treatment, what does that make me? I never know how to describe myself. I’m not ‘in remission’. Doctors don’t use that term any more. They say NED - no evidence of disease.

Which doesn’t sound very positive to me.

But I also don’t like saying I’m cancer free. I will never be cancer free. It was a huge, defining, life changing illness, that will forever be part of my story.

I have to take drugs, probably for the rest of my life. So every time I take that little white pill, a little reminder goes off in my head.

Ah yes. That happened. Cancer.

It’s not something you forget about.

I didn’t choose to be a warrior or a fighter.

My choice was fight for my life through hard core treatment. Or accept my death, which would probably have been slow and horrible.

I didn’t know how powerful my will to live is. I have so many adventures left to live. Kids who need their mummy. A whole life ahead of me. People tell me I am an inspiration. Which is incredibly flattering. But being strong through cancer isn’t how I would ever wish to inspire.

For me, the adjectives you see around cancer don’t seem to sum up what it actually is to have, or have had, cancer. I don’t like being a fighter. I always try to be positive but I also don’t like to tempt fate by calling myself a survivor.

So the best word I’ve seen is cancer REBEL. I am doing everything I can to rebel against cancer: To be the black sheep. The one who stands out. The one who doesn’t conform. The one who is in the minority. Who stands up for themselves and breaks the rules.

What about you? Is there a cancer phrase that you identify with?