On certain afternoons I am certain it has come back. A twinge in my right side, where the pain started more than ten years ago; the same pain mirrored on my left side, where there was nothing; soreness in my pelvis and in my hips, a ghost of the ‘big bone pain’ brought on by the drugs I had to self-inject (I had to get my wife to do it) in order to mobilise my blood count. It doesn’t take much. I woke the other night covered in sweat, and practically rang the ward there and then. Of course, it was nothing. It was probably the wine.
The most significant word in the previous paragraph is that tiny yet monumental ‘ten’. For anyone who has had cancer of any kind, ten years free from the disease represents the end, that victory is yours, the classic notation of which is that you have ‘beaten’ it. I have got to the stage where I am beginning to find boring the necessity of still having to point out inefficacy of such a metaphor. But, in case you have missed me saying it elsewhere, here are the reasons. First, treatment for cancer, in its usual combinations of surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy, is very much having the battle done to you, not the other way around. I was treated with the latter two, what my ward doctor liked to call the double-whammy (he had had Hodgkin’s lymphoma on and off since he was 16, so was allowed a little licence), rather than that unholy trinity. I have written two whole books about it, and I still can’t describe it. Second, the notion of a ‘battle’ places the responsibility of getting better upon the patient. This opens up the possibility that it is the ‘strong’ or ‘deserving’ patients who survive having cancer, and that those who die from it are somehow lacking in moral fibre. This is dangerous. (I sometimes wonder if it is not unlike a bizarre mutation of the Protestant work ethic, itself a mutation of the notion of the idea of ‘deserving’ to be ‘saved’.) Third, the idea of cancer as a ‘battle’ unnecessarily romanticises cancer as a disease when there is nothing romantic about it. Consider the phrase ‘after a short/long battle with cancer’ used in headlines when a (usually famous) person dies from the disease. Even though the ‘battle’ has been lost we persist in reassuring ourselves that the deceased has ‘given it everything’. Like so much that is said about cancer by people who have not had it, it is uttered more to reassure the speaker than those having treatment for the disease.
The popular myth about receiving news of remission is that you go home and reach for that bottle of Champagne you have been keeping at the back of the fridge for emergency celebrations. Let me tell you, it was not like that for me. Before she died I spoke with my friend Mary of the popular image of cancer patients ‘breasting the finishing tape’ at the end of a long race. For all the undoubted good intentions of campaigns such as the Race for Life, never was a metaphor more loaded, or, in Mary’s case, ironic. To say we found it inaccurate is an understatement.
For me remission was more like collapsing in a heap, or into a cave. Some of the darkest days I experienced with cancer (I will not say ‘battle’) came not after my original diagnosis or during the rigours of the double whammy, but in the aftermath of being told I was better. I think it is fair to say that this is not commonly anticipated by one’s friends and loved ones. Just as I shall not forget the uncomprehending looks of dismay on people’s faces when I told them I had cancer, neither shall I forget the same when I told them all I wanted to do now I was well was curl up under my duvet.
I think I am one of the lucky ones, in that I was directed to a specialist post-cancer counsellor, and that my family and friends were patient and kind to me as I tried to piece myself back together. The odd thing about remission is that the person who handles those fragments is not the same person who witnessed them being broken. I have heard stories of cancer patients who ‘just get on’ with their previous lives as though nothing has happened to them (and I wish them well). This was not a course I felt I could take. It is long and arduous work, secretive, non-linear and iterative. Every time I felt I had come to understand what I had been through I would find myself crying in the supermarket the next day, or at a song on the radio, wiping away tears as I made pasta for my children, explaining it as ‘nothing’.
The truth is, ten years from my diagnosis, but not quite from my remission, I am only now and very tentatively coming to terms with my experience of cancer. For one thing I have become hyper sensitised to the weight of duty in other people’s voices when they ask me how I am, especially if I have not seen them for a while. I can almost smell their anxiety that I might just answer them honestly. Oddly, I am also aware of my own superstitious and unreconstructed views towards cancer, as though by having had it I have somehow protected my family, friends and colleagues from having it. Just as my getting ill protected nobody, my getting better has saved no one either.
In the early days of my recovery I would shuffle round to my friend Lawrence Sail’s house where we would sip coffee and eat ginger nut biscuits. ‘It’s a very loaded word, remission, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘It literally means ‘sending back’.’ I began to appreciate the horror of what had happened to me in those moments, including how draining I found the effort of engaging with the places and people, including me, that I had been sent back to: family, of course; work; friends; and, not least, writing and reading, especially the latter. On the afternoons when I find myself rubbing my lower right side, or when I wake up drenched in sweat, nothing is more real or absolute. If I am lucky I will begin another paragraph (it never seems to return when I am teaching), or roll over and sleep instantaneously. If I am not, I may begin to obsess about it, a kind of thinking that is not really thinking at all but more a wired, emotional response that is far from remembering who and where I am, and even further from breath. My counsellor called it ‘spiralling’. Sometimes it lasts for days, though, these days, that is becoming rare. Instead I try to practice the other word my counsellor taught me, to have ‘acceptance’ an abstract word that only makes sense if it becomes a repetitive action. Yes, I say, cancer happened to me. I would rather it had not, but it did. I say thank you, and thank you, God. For the robin outside my window. For my children. For this coffee, and the voice in the other room which has just asked if she could have some, too. Which reminds me, there is living to do, and a life to commit to, each day.
Anthony Wilson 
Very powerful Anthony, and resonant for me, as I sit recovering from my third surgery in five years, due to arthritis x
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Thank you so much Rose. I do hope you feel better soon, x
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Very inspirational. Makes my daily grind seem nothing to this.. Blessings !!
😊
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Thank you so much for saying so.
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All the best Anthony!
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Yep. You said it. And beautifully so.
I remember my oncologist friend telling me “ You will never be the same again” – and my feeling really angry with him. I wanted to go back to being who I was. But he was right – in happy and unhappy ways I have not been the same.
Thanks for writing this.
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Thank you so much Bev. High praise. In happy and unhappy ways -says it exactly. A x
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I want this to read to medical students — in fact by everybody! The battle metaphor is ubiquitous and so unhelpful. I think difficulties that pile in after remission don’t seem so surprising, considering how the treatment phase draws on major psychological defences; they have a job to do for the patient, who has a job to do. As soon as the immediate threat is over, those defences go on holiday and feelings that couldn’t be felt before rise up — plus new ones! At least, that’s what I’ve found, personally and professionally. Those twinges — bastards! Thanks so much for this. Shared.
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The twinges I don’t seem to be able to control. The spiralling I can, with effort and sensible living. Once again I am indebted to your kind encouragement. As ever Anthony
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Very moving and powerful Anthony! I myself, am 18yrs clear of cancer and give thanks always. I love everything you write.
Blessings
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Bless you and thank you for saying so. As ever, Anthony
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Yep. Knowing that bone cancers are the likeliest next stage, every ache and pain in joints and bones. Plenty of them. You just have to keep schtumm about this with almost everyone, almost all the time, or so it feels. The times you do answer honestly, and with that person the whole topic of your health subsequently somehow disappears from the relationship as we both draw back in embarrassment at the other’s embarrassment. Repeatedly, in times of struggling with someone over something else and finding yourself growing impatient, wanting to shout, ‘Look, I have cancer, I really could do without this crap’, but you can’t. Glad to hear you’re ten years clear. Amen to what you’ve said.
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Thank you so much for your kind comment. I’m glad you saw this and that it resonated. Wishing you all the best as ever, Anthony
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Thank you for sharing. I enjoy reading your poems and you write in a way I can relate to. Always with a underlying message, that lifts my heart. And using language generously though with economy, i.e. where each word counts. And infused with real concrete feelings. Thanks for being an inspiring poetic source in my life.
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You are kind to say so. Thank you. With very best wishes Anthony
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This is such a good post. Thank you. As a teenager, the only way I could grapple with the idea of remission – in my mother’s case – was by thinking of all her ‘post cancer diagnosis’ time as Bonus Time – a new kind of time that couldn’t really be measured, and I suppose in a way that was a great preparation for life. X
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Thank you so much Clare. What a great insight. With best wishes as ever Anthony
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Thank you for articulating this. I found myself reading it from your wife’s point of view as my experience of cancer is that of the the anxious partner. My partner cannot put into words what he feels emotionally and his response to everyone when they ask how he is feeling is, ‘I’m fine.’ He doesn’t want to burden them or to be emasculated by his cancer. Now that his treatment is finished, we wait to here we are free, but I know already that ‘remission’ will sound unsatisfactory when we want to hear ‘cured’.
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Thank you so much for your kind and helpful insights. Wishing you and your partner all the very best, Anthony
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This is very good. I have not had cancer. I wish I could say the same for my friends. Oddly I find reading the detail feels risky, as though you bring me so close to what you have been through that I might somehow catch it. Cancer might be there now inside me and just naming it might call it out. I know that’s ridiculous, and it’s not that I live in fear of developing illnesses I haven’t had yet (I’m not THAT daft) but still a little bit of me reads with care and concern and interest, while at the same time secretly shrinking back. Like someone walking round a puddle and teetering slightly so as not to step in it.
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Thank you Nell. Your kindness and insight are rare. A x
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So beautifully, honestly and truly written, you are not alone Anthony Wilson. We are the lucky ones!
“treatment for cancer, in its usual combinations of surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy, is very much having the battle done to you, not the other way around”
“For all the undoubted good intentions of campaigns such as the Race for Life, never was a metaphor more loaded”
What to do next? https://wordpress.com/post/ailsawishes.wordpress.com/299
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Thank you as ever for you kind words. They mean more than I can say. As ever, Anthony
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Beautiful moving words, as always, Anthony. Like a few people above I’m fortunate to be healthy so far, but it is not the case for several of my friends, family members and neighbors who have or have had cancer. Some are like you in remission, some didn’t make it that far. Anyone I know who is in remission, even after many years, speaks like you of the haunting fear, despite of the deep appreciation for the life they can continue to live. Best to you.
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I really appreciate you saying this Evelyne. And best wishes to you too X Anthony
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I love everything you write. And it seems my boys do too. For the first time (why?) I included your collections and ‘Lifesaving Poems’ in the choice of 40 or so which my Year 9s got to browse through prior to selecting their favourite poems and then writing their own Editor’s Introduction. Just over a third of the class chose poems from ‘Riddance’ and/or ‘Lifesaving’ – the favourites were ‘To My Tumour’ and ‘Helping my Son do his GCSE Poetry Homework’ (hope I’ve got that title right), I used your Intro essay as a model for their own introductions and they loved that too. Alchemy in the classroom. Thanks to you. Again. x
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Hi Rebecca. You don’t know how much I appreciate you saying this. It is brilliantly timed. Thank you. I’m thrilled to know my books are out there being read by your students. With big hugs as ever, Ant
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