girl with the good kind of cancer

The internet is on FIRE this week with great things for young adult cancer patients and survivors. There was the beautifully written “fuck you for telling me to be positive” article and the equally awesome, “stop expecting so much from cancer patients” post. I also had the chance to connect with some fabulous and brave young adult cancer survivors. When I hear others’ stories I think to myself, “wow, maybe I DID have it easy and I should be thankful.” But you know what? Other YA cancer people don’t see it that way. They think it fucking sucks I had to go through it at all. They are curious and ask questions about long-term effects of radiation, my prognosis, and want to know how I’m feeling — how I’m REALLY feeling. All of this because they knows what it’s like to be diagnosed with cancer as a young person and live with its effects, and even though their experiences might have been a thousand times more painful, expensive, and daunting than mine, things like that don’t matter in the young adult cancer community. We don’t look at each other and say, “I had it worse than you” or “you have no idea what it’s like to have _____.” This extends to other young adults suffering from chronic illness outside of cancer. It’s not about who has cancer vs. lyme disease vs. chronic fatigue syndrome vs. depression vs. hypothyroidism vs. diabetes vs. Crohn’s Disease (the list can go on, and often these things can be co-occuring, such as cancer and depression). Instead, it’s about making each other feel comfortable to talk about how shitty it is and not have to put on a positive attitude for the rest of the world.

The “you just need to be more positive” comments have GOT to stop. To me, it seems like other people want cancer patients to be positive because it makes things easier for THEM. It’s a selfish request – “Janna, can’t you just be positive? You’ll get better that way!” Translates to, “Janna, your negativity makes me uncomfortable and I don’t know how to deal with it.” I’m sorry I can’t be everyone’s perfect version of a cancer patient. I can’t wave my teal, pink, and blue thyroid cancer ribbon and be happy this happened to me.

For some, being angry and negative has probably saved their life.

Having a negative attitude doesn’t prolong cancer any more than having a positive attitude will cure or prevent cancer. It just makes others more comfortable. But you know what? I’M not comfortable right now. I’m not comfortable with having cancer, or with the pain, or with the mental anguish. So why should I do anything to make it easier for EVERYONE ELSE? I’m going to do what works for me and makes me feel better. If everyone else doesn’t like it, they don’t need to be in my life.

I’ll leave everyone with a comment from the first article.

“Don’t fucking tell someone to be positive. Be there for them. Because the truth is, we don’t tell people to be positive to make them feel better. We tell people dealing with cancer and other devastating diseases that they should be positive so that we can feel better, like we’ve done our good deed, without actually doing anything to help. We tell them to be positive about it, then we go about our lives feeling like we did something good. But unless you’re there to help clean up, to provide a shoulder when they’re too weak to stand up, to just hold their hand or hug them when they need it, you haven’t done a goddamn thing.“

Tags: attitude, young adult cancer