6 ms·

I was surprised to see the BBC report that he’d lost his battle with cancer as I’d thought BBC retired the term. Here is BBC reporting on the unusefulness of t

by robga 3y ago

I was surprised to see the BBC report that he’d lost his battle with cancer as I’d thought BBC retired the term. Here is BBC reporting on the unusefulness of the term https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-47002578 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-47002578 Here is a Wikipedia page on the topic https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_metaphors_in_cancer https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_metaphors_in_cancer

dumpsterdiver 3y ago
> Calling a person's cancer diagnosis a "war" or a "battle" and saying they had "lost their battle" or "lost their fight" when they died, were other unpopular descriptions, according to the poll carried out by YouGov. I am responding to the weakly linked poll, which I didn't read because there wasn't actually a link provided (that's why it is weak). YouGov is not a complete URL. Did you mean YouGov.io? Or perhaps YouGov.porn? Would we have better luck with YouGov.com, or will that lead us to a similarly questionable site? Response: Um, okay. I'll be sure to not to mention such words when I refer to my girlfriend who is "having so much fun" with uterus cancer.
- kashunstva 3y ago
  > I'll be sure to not to mention such words when I refer to my girlfriend who is "having so much fun" with uterus cancer. The issue is around bellicose metaphors in oncology. While some people respond to that language, many do not. In particular, in some studies it increases feelings of guilt regarding the transition from active to palliative care in situations where the malignancy is not responding to active treatment or where the patient doesn’t want to accept the adverse effects of treatment, as in “Oh, you’re giving up?” But surely there are choices of language that are neither war-like nor cynical.
  - chiefalchemist 3y ago
    Across the board, we should "retire" the war-esque (i.e., violence normalizing) language. There's got to be better ways to communicate such things without promoting the species' worst habit.
    - fyloraspit 3y ago
      If the modern western world needs more of something, it's definitely euphemism
      - oldgradstudent 3y ago
        The use of "lost the war with cancer" here is also a bit of a euphemism for "died from cancer".
      - InitialLastName 3y ago
        To be fair, going from "lost his battle with cancer" to something else is at worst breaking even in terms of the western world's euphemism count.
      - chiefalchemist 3y ago
        True. But the war-based ones are far too normalized. What's next, The War on Violence? Or how about The War on War? Words create worlds.
  - dumpsterdiver 3y ago
    > The issue is around bellicose metaphors in oncology. Translation: You seem to be claiming that "the issue" is about hostile rhetoric regarding the study and treatment of tumors. > While some people respond to that language, many do not. I'm not understanding what you are trying to say here. Do we not all respond to hostile rhetoric in unique ways? When you say that someone "does not respond", surely you mean something else? > In particular, in some studies it increases feelings of guilt regarding the transition from active to palliative care in situations where the malignancy is not responding to active treatment or where the patient doesn’t want to accept the adverse effects of treatment, as in “Oh, you’re giving up?” When you say that "in some studies it increases feelings of guilt", what is the "it" that you are referring to exactly?
    - mahathu 3y ago
      >I'm not understanding what you are trying to say here. Do we not all respond to hostile rhetoric in unique ways? When you say that someone "does not respond", surely you mean something else? "to respond" in the clinical world and what she or he is referring to here means having a positive reaction to treatment: https://www.cancer.gov/publications/dictionaries/cancer-terms/def/response https://www.cancer.gov/publications/dictionaries/cancer-term...
oldgradstudent 3y ago
As Norm Macdonald said: > if you die the cancer also dies at exactly the same time. So that to me is not a loss, that's a draw https://youtu.be/Hm0cAbK-ays?t=95 https://youtu.be/Hm0cAbK-ays?t=95
borbulon 3y ago
I have stage 4 lung cancer. I'm not "battling" cancer. It's not a "battle." It's stage 4. Cancer will eventually win. At best I am "prolonging the inevitable." I am not "courageously fighting." The metaphor I prefer to use, that is not original to me, is that I got on the wrong fucking bus, and now we're headed somewhere I never asked to go, and there's no getting off. I am scared shitless, doing whatever I can to slow the bus down. There's nothing courageous about taking the next chemo, wishing not to die.
- snthpy 3y ago
  I'm sorry about your fate and I wish you all the best. Have you looked at trying psilocybin? It seems to be very effective at lessening fear of death in end of life situations.
  - borbulon 3y ago
    TBH Fear of death isn't really the issue for me (well, maybe a little, but I've done high-dose ketamine treatments twice). Right now it's the fear of living - of doing this same thing for the next 10, 15, 20 years. Chemo every 3 weeks, all the quarterly CT scans and the waiting for the results that will tell me if the current regimen is working or not (current one is "working" in that nothing's growing...but nothing's shrinking either). All the MRIs which will tell me if anything has metastasized in my brain, and waiting patiently for -those- results (we caught one last fall and radiated it out). The never quite feeling like I have enough energy to do "normal" things like mow the lawn. Being the dad who has to take a nap every day while my kids slowly grow up. All the worry about what happens when this chemo medication stops working (they all do after some time), will I have enough warning that it's not working or will things double in size before they can find out. All the people who get you alone and then it's "but seriously, how are -YOU-?" The well meaning people who say "well attitude is half the battle!" (hint - it's not). The overall feeling of complete helplessness, like there's nothing I can do that's going to influence how this goes, when it decides it's going to go sideways. Knowing that they'll never do surgery on me because the numbers say in the time I'd need to recuperate, something somewhere else inside of me that didn't show up on a scan would have time to grow. Does any of that feel like a battle? Like I'm courageously fighting? (I apologize, this isn't exactly what you asked about, and I'm not writing an angry response here to anything you wrote, I promise).

by robga 3y ago

dumpsterdiver 3y ago

> Calling a person's cancer diagnosis a "war" or a "battle" and saying they had "lost their battle" or "lost their fight" when they died, were other unpopular descriptions, according to the poll carried out by YouGov. I am responding to the weakly linked poll, which I didn't read because there wasn't actually a link provided (that's why it is weak). YouGov is not a complete URL. Did you mean YouGov.io? Or perhaps YouGov.porn? Would we have better luck with YouGov.com, or will that lead us to a similarly questionable site? Response: Um, okay. I'll be sure to not to mention such words when I refer to my girlfriend who is "having so much fun" with uterus cancer.

kashunstva 3y ago
> I'll be sure to not to mention such words when I refer to my girlfriend who is "having so much fun" with uterus cancer. The issue is around bellicose metaphors in oncology. While some people respond to that language, many do not. In particular, in some studies it increases feelings of guilt regarding the transition from active to palliative care in situations where the malignancy is not responding to active treatment or where the patient doesn’t want to accept the adverse effects of treatment, as in “Oh, you’re giving up?” But surely there are choices of language that are neither war-like nor cynical.
- chiefalchemist 3y ago
  Across the board, we should "retire" the war-esque (i.e., violence normalizing) language. There's got to be better ways to communicate such things without promoting the species' worst habit.
  - fyloraspit 3y ago
    If the modern western world needs more of something, it's definitely euphemism
    - oldgradstudent 3y ago
      The use of "lost the war with cancer" here is also a bit of a euphemism for "died from cancer".
    - InitialLastName 3y ago
      To be fair, going from "lost his battle with cancer" to something else is at worst breaking even in terms of the western world's euphemism count.
    - chiefalchemist 3y ago
      True. But the war-based ones are far too normalized. What's next, The War on Violence? Or how about The War on War? Words create worlds.
- dumpsterdiver 3y ago
  > The issue is around bellicose metaphors in oncology. Translation: You seem to be claiming that "the issue" is about hostile rhetoric regarding the study and treatment of tumors. > While some people respond to that language, many do not. I'm not understanding what you are trying to say here. Do we not all respond to hostile rhetoric in unique ways? When you say that someone "does not respond", surely you mean something else? > In particular, in some studies it increases feelings of guilt regarding the transition from active to palliative care in situations where the malignancy is not responding to active treatment or where the patient doesn’t want to accept the adverse effects of treatment, as in “Oh, you’re giving up?” When you say that "in some studies it increases feelings of guilt", what is the "it" that you are referring to exactly?
  - mahathu 3y ago
    >I'm not understanding what you are trying to say here. Do we not all respond to hostile rhetoric in unique ways? When you say that someone "does not respond", surely you mean something else? "to respond" in the clinical world and what she or he is referring to here means having a positive reaction to treatment: https://www.cancer.gov/publications/dictionaries/cancer-terms/def/response https://www.cancer.gov/publications/dictionaries/cancer-term...

oldgradstudent 3y ago

As Norm Macdonald said: > if you die the cancer also dies at exactly the same time. So that to me is not a loss, that's a draw https://youtu.be/Hm0cAbK-ays?t=95 https://youtu.be/Hm0cAbK-ays?t=95

borbulon 3y ago

I have stage 4 lung cancer. I'm not "battling" cancer. It's not a "battle." It's stage 4. Cancer will eventually win. At best I am "prolonging the inevitable." I am not "courageously fighting." The metaphor I prefer to use, that is not original to me, is that I got on the wrong fucking bus, and now we're headed somewhere I never asked to go, and there's no getting off. I am scared shitless, doing whatever I can to slow the bus down. There's nothing courageous about taking the next chemo, wishing not to die.

snthpy 3y ago
I'm sorry about your fate and I wish you all the best. Have you looked at trying psilocybin? It seems to be very effective at lessening fear of death in end of life situations.
- borbulon 3y ago
  TBH Fear of death isn't really the issue for me (well, maybe a little, but I've done high-dose ketamine treatments twice). Right now it's the fear of living - of doing this same thing for the next 10, 15, 20 years. Chemo every 3 weeks, all the quarterly CT scans and the waiting for the results that will tell me if the current regimen is working or not (current one is "working" in that nothing's growing...but nothing's shrinking either). All the MRIs which will tell me if anything has metastasized in my brain, and waiting patiently for -those- results (we caught one last fall and radiated it out). The never quite feeling like I have enough energy to do "normal" things like mow the lawn. Being the dad who has to take a nap every day while my kids slowly grow up. All the worry about what happens when this chemo medication stops working (they all do after some time), will I have enough warning that it's not working or will things double in size before they can find out. All the people who get you alone and then it's "but seriously, how are -YOU-?" The well meaning people who say "well attitude is half the battle!" (hint - it's not). The overall feeling of complete helplessness, like there's nothing I can do that's going to influence how this goes, when it decides it's going to go sideways. Knowing that they'll never do surgery on me because the numbers say in the time I'd need to recuperate, something somewhere else inside of me that didn't show up on a scan would have time to grow. Does any of that feel like a battle? Like I'm courageously fighting? (I apologize, this isn't exactly what you asked about, and I'm not writing an angry response here to anything you wrote, I promise).