“Chinese people have a saying: when people get cancer, they die. But it’s not the cancer that kills them, it’s the fear.”
once your life has been touched by cancer, it can feel like cancer is everywhere. there are so many triggers – movies about cancer, people dying of cancer, social media posts, and dreams about cancer. in some bizarre and seemingly unexplainable way i am also very drawn to these stories. i find myself clicking on instagram posts that people in the cancer community have posted, wanting to learn about people who have died. i choose to read memoirs about people who have been diagnosed with cancer and other horrible diseases. this week i actually made a conscious decision to watch a movie that i knew was about cancer. wouldn’t most rational people who have had cancer avoid these storylines?! reading people’s stories makes me feel connected; yet it gives me new potential scenarios to worry about. it is hard to hate from close up, people say. could that argument apply? if i look at cancer under a microscope, knowing my enemy and the pain it causes, does that make me more resourceful, informed, prepared? might it decrease my fear?