Humor, Hurt, and Healing: Finding Language That Fits Your Cancer Experience

Hey, there lifter uppers. I'm Deb career, the co host of cancer and comedy, where our mission is to heal cancer impacted people through hope and humor, something we like to call turning the grim into a grin. Well, today we're going to get a little bit serious on cancer and comedy, and we're going to talk about the language of cancer in particular kind of the militaristic terms that we sometimes use. So here is the host of cancer and comedy. Dr Brad Miller,

Hey, Deb, always a pleasure privilege to be with you and our lifter uppers as we look to offer an approach to cancer with has a understanding that healing can take place with hope and with humor. And we'd like to generate a sense of community around that. And we hope that people will connect up with us at our website, cancer and comedy.com/follow Deb. Got a couple of, uh, got a couple of jokes for you ready for him here.

Yay.

Hey, I saw two snails fighting the other day. I gotta say, though they can really slug it out.

Cute,

but I'm having some vision trouble this morning. I can't see myself doing anything.

Oh, I love that. Very good.

There you go.

Well, as you know, folks following our conversation, you're going to want to stick around, because, yes, we will have another one of Dr Brad's bad jokes of the day. But then, of course, we get very serious, and we do his face It or Break It segment. Well, we would love for you to be part of our cancer and comedy community, where together we crush cancer with a message of how to cope with hope and humor. Please follow cancer and comedy. At cancer and comedy.com/follow

Well, Deb, I wanted to chat today with you about something then I know there's something you've talked about to deal with, and that's the language that we have around the cancer situation. And I know there's certain terms that you use in your website, in your Facebook page, I want to get into those specifically in a minute, and others that you don't really care for. But I was we're going to talk about the how that how the language matters and matters to different people. I came across this article by or a short article. Uh, it's like people heard of Miss Manners and advice. Uh, column, columnist, and she was responding to someone who was dealing with cancer, and the title was, let's lose the cancer battle lingo. And she was just saying how that the metaphors that the of things like losing or fighting or succumbing or surviving or battling cancer, she just basically was making the point she didn't fight, they were all that helpful, because they kind of portrayed cancer as something like a competition. And that was her. It was her advice to the writer there. And let's just talk about a little bit. I want you, if you will, for a minute. Explain to me what, yeah, I know you have some specific feelings about this, about some of the terms you like and don't like, in reference to cancer, and unpack some of the background of that. Can you go there with me for a minute? I

love it. Well, you know, the first thing when I read her article, I thought, well, she's clearly never had cancer. But it did make me think, because how we use our words is, of course, very important. And, you know, and I do tend to see it as a battle. I tell people, I'm in the Battle of my life, you know, or the battle for my life. And so I do see it in kind of that militaristic, confrontational type of of way. So I refer to myself as a warrior. If you call me a patient, I make a face at you. Now I'm okay with survivor, and I tell you I was a survivor about 30 seconds after they told me I had cancer, okay, right? You know, we think about it, it's like, okay, well, I'm gonna get through this to me, then you're a survivor, um, you know, and, and, but, but, yeah, I've always said that I'm a warrior, that I'm bringing my tribe together, but I do understand that for some people, that has such negative connotations that they don't want to, you know, that's that's not what they want to do. They want to talk about their journey. They want to talk about it, maybe, and this is great in the the aspects of how it makes positive changes in their life going forward, and things like that. But I think the key is that we need to find out what they want. You know, what the terms are that they want. And so it actually made me curious, what do you see yourself as? Are you a warrior, a survivor? How do you see yourself?

Well, you know, made me think about this a lot, too. In fact, even I was at an event, a cancer. For benefit just yesterday, and I was telling people about my story a little bit, and I just sound found myself dancing around a little bit whether I wanted to call myself a patient or survivor or a battler, this kind of thing. The word, the word I often come up with, and I'm not even completely satisfied with this, Deb is the word cope. You know, I'm coping with, and I try to help other people cope with cancer. And that's that's kind of to me, that indicates process, but the metaphor is a little bit incomplete word that I've found myself leaning towards, in terms of my life, is I'm impacted by cancer and as well. So I'm a cancer and it that doesn't really work either impact E, you know, whatever, that kind of thing. But, you know, but I do. I'm not opposed to survivor. There's some things about that that I'm not comfortable with too, because it does indicate, okay, if I survived and someone else didn't, or they, you know, there's sometimes a little bit of a value thing going on here, a comparison thing, and that's part of what I think some of the points were made here. There is, I think there's a need for us to discuss the language of cancer, because different people do see it differently. And like, I'm interested in why you recoil a little bit at the word patient. Why is that? And you kind of recoiled a little bit about the word patient. You don't like that word patient. And yet, you know, I know when you go to the get treatments, the people that the medical centers are calling you a patient, I'm sure. So tell me what. Unpack that for me a little bit why you don't like to be called patient,

you know, I'll be honest. I'm not sure. And And now, what will really get my goat is if you call me by my diagnosis. Oh, I was, I was in one time for one of my checkups, and I heard them say the thyroid cancer patient is in room three. And I went out and I said, Excuse me, I am far more than the thyroid cancer patient. And I said, please. I said, you know, I get it. I understand why you do that. And I said, but I am far more than that, and I need you to see me as far more than that also.

Wow, that's powerful. This is about being seen and being heard and being understood as a human being, not as some technical thing. And I think that kind of says a little bit about this understanding of patient is, you know, the technical terminology that they use for all of us who go through treatment. I get that, but I certainly under appreciate it. Like the medical centers I go to, they make sure to it's somewhere in their notes, it says, What is the nickname that you like to go by. I love that, yeah. And so they make a point of that the medical centers I go to, and I appreciate that being addressed by name and not by not by diagnosis there and right, you know, but it seems like there's a lot of terminology that has this kind of militaristic type of thing with it. You know, battles, battle cancer and overcome and, you know, we talk about people succumbing to cancer, that kind of thing, when it doesn't work out. What do you think for people is helpful about those type of metaphors, and maybe not helpful when we talk in those type of terms?

You know. Again, it's your personal perspective. I mean, if you see yourself as fighting a battle, then that's probably the terms that you're going to use if you see it, you know. And, but there are, you know, and I've had people who tell me that warrior is a very triggering word, yeah? And, you know, and that's okay, I mean, they, and it's funny, because I asked them, well, what would you prefer? Well, they didn't know, but, but, yeah, it's, it can be. And, you know, I think, I think it is because there are, you know, it does obviously have such negative connotations. You know that that it is, you know it but, but I also see it as you know, maybe we're, we're doing a battle plan, we're doing strategy, right? So maybe it's just that we leave out those negative words, okay, what's your strategy, as opposed to, what's your battle plan, you know, and, and, but again, it's, it's very personal. You know, most people I know like the word warrior and and the terms that go along with it, but there are some who do not like that, you know, they they want it to be in a much more positive type of tone.

Now, one of the people we read an article that you said to me, the doctor said, but she prefers the language about living with cancer, and I think that's one way of looking at it, but I think what I'm hearing you say here, Deb, is we need to be authentic about it and kind of own it, but I think it is important we get some sort of language. Ways to put around our personal experience, and even the word cancer, you know, in and of itself, is such a charged word, you know, I know in my life, in my life, I'll just share this with you. I My birthday is in July, so I'm under the zodiac sign of cancer, and so all my whole life, you know, I'm not a whatever. I'm not into that kind of stuff about astrology, what have you. But, you know, just a conversation. Hey, we know what sign are you and I? During my life, growing up from a little kid on, I go, I'm a cancer. Then I start coughing. Make a dumb joke about it, but it then it wasn't quite so funny when I became cancer myself. But all I know is that that word cancer as a zodiac sign is much more charged than whatever Sagittarius or something else like that. I'm a fish, yeah. Oh, there you go. You're, you're, uh, Pisces the fish, and mine, even my sign Cancer is a crab, which is not exactly attractive, either or not. You know, like some of the other things as well. But my point is, imagery and language do matter. I know one of the logos you have is a warrior logo, and what you use in your your kind of thing, and I think whatever can help us through this, we do know this, that cancer is a journey, and a journey has its ups and downs and its battles, so to speak, or of certainly, adversities and obstacles to overcome. And we do have to steal ourselves. We do have to prepare ourselves. And we do have to, you know, get get ready for that. Even the Bible talks about put on the full armor of God and things like this, and breast place of righteousness. And there's some imagery along along along that line. What do you think of me? Some if we were going to look kind of beyond militaristic type language, what are some other languages, language or terminology you think might be helpful for people to give some framework for them to to deal with this? Maybe you've heard them, or maybe you've experienced them yourself. Yeah, I

they, they do tend to use the words that we've already talked about, you know, I'm on a journey with cancer. Or they don't even mention the word cancer, you know, because it has such a negative on an open you know, sometimes they just say, I'm I'm dealing with a situation. I've got health issues, you know, all of those things. And I think our cue then is to to follow that. I mean, you know, if somebody says I'm dealing with health issues, don't blurt out, well, I thought you had cancer. And so just kind of go with whatever they are saying, um, you know, and, and it is, it's, it is, it's very strange, you know. And I think sometimes it's just dealing with, I'm dealing with that's cancer, I'm dealing with a house situation, whatever it is, and, and you don't need to be labeling it is, maybe the thing to That's a good thought, too. Yeah, yeah, you know, and, and, but, but, yeah, it's, it is interesting, because, you know, obviously, from the health care perspective, the doctors are always going to say, you're a patient, you're a patient, right? Okay? And, like I said, I don't know why I'm not wild about that word. I it just it doesn't have a positive or negative connotation. I mean, it just is like, okay, just

feels doesn't feel good. I I think we can also have a little bit of nuance discussion around the word survivor, because I think right, survivor also brings with it maybe a little tinge of guilt. Perhaps, if I'm a survivor, you know, like I had successful prostrate surgery a few years ago and doing pretty well. You are an amazing miracle person, having gone through stage four cancer three or four times. I don't know you. You're the mirror three. And that's that's pretty incredibly miraculous, right there. But we both know of people and either in our life, or people out there who didn't make it, you know, they had situations that didn't make it. And so for some people that were survivor kind of brings with it a guilt, you know, there's, you know, I know of some people in other situations. I knew. I knew a particular situation where my former secretary of my last church was killed in a car crash where her husband was driving, and he had terrible survivor guilt about he was basically unhurt and his wife was killed in a car crash. So this type of thing can be a part of this, this journey, as it were, of language, as we deal with it here. Yeah, right,

well, and you know, some people feel that you're not a survivor until you finished your treatment and you're, you know, X period of time with no scans, you know, showing up. You know, the word cured is also another one of those words, you know, because there's, there's a medical connotation. I. Um, but there's also the personal you know, I knew someone who you know that when she received her, you know her all clear, hey, nothing's showing up on the scans, they told her, or she said, I'm cured. And they said, Well, no, you need to after five years, if nothing has come up, then I'm cured. And she said, Nope, I'm cured. For her, that was how she was going to deal with it. And, you know, and that's perfectly fine, you know? That was exactly what she wanted to say.

Well, I think it's pretty good. Everybody needs to kind of claim their own personal terminology of that what works for them like, I know that not everyone really vibes with our basic good take here of healing with hope and humor. You know that not everybody goes along with that? There are some people really want to see the process of dealing cancer or other bad things in life as a really kind of a, a inward activity that's not really social or or things of this nature, this nature, don't be quiet about it. You don't want people to know about it, and, and they want to be play close to the vest, as it were. And I think we got to respect that and and be mindful of that. And other of us, like, we like to, you know, have, and some people think it seem a disrespectful they even, you know, tell a joke or have some fun about, like, what we like to do, about what goes on in treatment, treatment centers. You know, just the other day, I was having a treatment. I was having a treatment, you know, infusion. The other just last week, I'm having some infusions for I have anemia, and I have to get some infusions of iron in any out the I was joking around with the nurse about it, like I do about, you know, but putting the needles in me and that kind of stuff, and the person in the booth next to me get infusion of, I think, something cancer related to said, Well, You know, I said, Well, you know, are you gonna play some dance music here, you know, while we're waiting for a couple hours here? And the woman actually says, Yeah, we need to have some pole dancing music, because we all have these poles, you know, oh, yeah, because we've all got the IV poles, IV poles. And they, she was an older, much woman, probably in her 90s, I'm guessing. And, you know, she's talking about pole dancing, and that just struck me funny. But, you know, we we, my point is, everybody takes us differently, and we got to get some language kind of around it. And I think some of the guests we've had on our podcast over the last couple years have indicated that they have found some language to deal with some pretty serious stuff. You know, we've had people deal with suicide, and had people deal with, you know, really dramatic cancer and mental health issues, things like that, and having put some language around that that works for them. So, right, is there any, is there any new vocabulary, any new word that we've not talked about here? Do you think might be fun to be a part of

a well, I mean, you know, we are all about having fun and, and, I mean, that's just me, right? And so when I first, you know, when, when they were very first talking to me about my diagnosis, for whatever reason, they kept calling it an artifact. Oh, serious, right? It's an artifact, right? That was very strange. But what that led to was my cancer was became arty, and I actually created a funny little cartoon that was arty, and we were going to get rid of Artie. And, you know, like, like I said, I deal with it with humor. Other people would have probably thought, well, that's not funny at all. Well, in

this case, you created your own personal language, you know, your own personal label already that I think is cool. That is, they think that that's cool. Just couple other quick examples of that. In my own local community, there's a couple of pretty well known actually, they're throughout the whole country, DJs named Bob and Tom and anyhow, the guy on the Bob, the Bob of The Bob Show, got cancer, really bad, really severe case, and then he created a podcast, but basically said, I'm firing my partner. And his partner was cancer, so, so he just says, you know, I want to kill him. I'm going to kill my partner, you know, because he'd had this partner on the radio for years, and that became really the theme, you know, of his podcast for a while, he killed my partner. And in my case, I remember, you know, when I first was diagnosed with cancer, and it was pretty severe and life threatening, so on. And somebody said something, well, that's kind of a grim situation that you're facing there. And for some reason that struck my head, okay, grim grin. I don't know why it hit me that way. And so that's one of the phrases we use here, is turn your grim into a grin. And so transformative things. So I think what we're saying here is, you know, battle metaphors work. You know, we're going to battle cancer. We're going to. To be a survivor. We're going to, even if we doesn't work out, we have fought the you know, fought the you know, fought the good fight, fought the good fight. Those type of metaphors are used, and I think they're helpful to many people and and yet, I think it's also good if we can kind of put our own framework or language on it. I think it's kind of where we've kind of coming down on this here. Well, any final thing, any final thoughts for us, sir, you and Artie.

Yeah, me and Artie, you know? And it was funny because I liked saying arty as opposed to cancer, right? I mean, that was kind of why I did that, right? But I think it comes down to respecting what someone else wants. You know, if they don't want to say I'm a warrior, then don't call them a warrior, you know. And, and so you know and, and maybe you know, whatever it is that they're comfortable with, use that term because it's their journey, their process. So you know what? What is going to help them the most?

Well, I think that's kind of part of the essence of the couple articles we read in preparation for this is that they're talking one of the authors was talking about living with cancer. Was her choice of words, and or another person said, I've got gone through the cancer process, and I'm doing well. And so everybody needs to choose doing well was her. Was her thing. Everybody needs to choose what what they do. And for you and I, you know, we've chosen to take a tact of hope and humor that those things go together, and we certainly share that with our cancer and comedy audience people, basically, you're not giving up on life. They're going to live life to the full, to the fullest, right? Whether it's a couple days or 20 years or whatever it is, you know, basically, we all have an expiration date. You know, eventually we all and whether it's cancer or something else, is going to get us eventually. But, you know, the idea here is to live our life to the fullest, and yet, you know, find some language that helps us to put a framework on that help us to have a good conversation about it. And I personally like it when we can kind of diffuse it a little bit and not be so scary. You know, that kind of thing. I know. I've had some conversations with people who deal with with children and cancer, you know, and that that that type of thing, and how the different language, in fact, my own I hung out with, hung out my own granddaughters a couple of days ago for Father's Day deal. And then they were asking me, I have a bracelet this as my cancer and comedy thing on it. And they were asking me about that, and I tried to explain a little bit how I was sick with cancer, but they're, you know, they're seven and five, they don't get it yet. But I just tried to say this was a kind of a serious thing, and I'm doing better now, but I didn't want to really, I didn't really want to use cancer to be scary about it. I wanted to kind of be right forth, forthright, forthright about it. And I think that's what we're talking about here, finding the right language that works for us and and if we can be helpful to our cancer and comedy lifter uppers to be a part of a conversation about language, that's exactly what we want to do, right,

right, right. We always want to make people think, well, you know, as we've said, it is cancer and comedy. So now it's time for another one of Dr Brad's bad jokes of the day. You