5 Things You Should Not Say To A Terminal Cancer Patient

Pink Portrait With Purple Hair at the Getty Images Studio, New York, NY

So, okay. I am a terminal cancer patient. The word terminal: “Adjective; (of a disease) predicted to lead to death, especially slowly; incurable. “terminal cancer”. Synonyms: incurable, untreatable, inoperable; fatal, mortal, deadly; immedicable. “a terminal illness”. Cheerful stuff! Good thing I’m more of a glass-half-full type or else I’d be running for my bed right now and snuggling under the comforter with my sleepy sweet senior cat.

But hell, I ain’t. Cancer to me is a “chronic condition” much like diabetes. Cancer will never make me its bitch; the opposite is my plan. Plan A and Plan B? To live another 28 years. This is because when I was diagnosed and my oncologist answered my tearful query, should i put my affairs in order? Should I quit my job and travel the world? (This last, with a decided gleam in my eye and a spring in my step; I love travel).

No, not at all. You’re robust and healthy and we’re treating you by quashing the estrogen that your cancer feeds on, never mind that we’re also putting you in a state of perpetual menopause (Menopause Perpetua). You can live another five years — another twenty years.

To which I said, under my breath and to myself, I’ll take another thirty-five years. This was the week of my birthday, 2011 (Happy Birthday!) and I am coming up on not only my 63rd birthday this April, but seven years to the day of my diagnosis. Seven years! I have twenty-eight more years to go, if we survive the current administration and I continue to get health insurance even though I have a Pre-Existing Condition (so sue me). I repeated thirty-five years to myself every minute of every day when I wasn’t doing other stuff, like figuring out medication or medical bills or checking insurance statements. Or looking for another job where my boss didn’t make me feel like shit for having cancer (I found one; there was a happy end to that story).

Cancer, the evil devil that it is, gives you a shit ton to do. And I’m busy!
I’ve got things to do, people to see. Come on! Like I needed a whole new set of priorities. But — as often happens, life had other plans. To quote my soul brother, the deeply missed John Lennon, “Life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans.”

But I digress (nothing gives me as much pleasure as digressing, then stating that I have, by the way).

The five things you should never say to a Terminal Cancer Patient are:

1. How are you feeeeeeeeling? (while looking me straight in the eye, and being sickly sincere)
2. What is it like to know your time is running out? (oh, really? I could also step onto the street and get run over by a bus — and so could you).
3. Do you think you should have your sore throat seen to? Maybe the cancer is metastisizing elsewhere to a different organ than your spine — like your throat!. (Again, that’s cheerful and won’t keep me up at night).
4. When’s the last time you had that checked out? (This can refer to any number of things; my heart arrhythmia which I’ve had my whole adult life, to a new ache in my knee that is likely due to estrogen-leaching meds).
5. If you’re depressed and need someone to talk to, please call me — I’m here. (You know, I wasn’t, I’m coping fine, I have plenty of friends who don’t bring up inappropriate topics and just follow my lead respectfully, hugging me when I make it clear that’s what I need, pouring a glass of wine or a cup of coffee or rolling a spliff, bringing groceries over or taking me out to dinner when that seems the more likely path to take).

We know you mean well. But think before you speak. Put yourself in our shoes and think, how would this sound if you were the one facing shuffling off your mortal coil or lowering the curtain of life? (This last phrase is a Japanese metaphor for death which I found through the glory of the internet) (Which reminds me, is there internet in the afterlife? Or would we just pick knowledge like a stream of diamonds from the sky whenever we wanted, sort of like an endless Black Mirror episode? This is starting to sound better all the time). (Hey by the way, I’m down for a trip to San Junipero if anyone’s asking).

Some metaphors for death in other cultures are (and I’m digressing again, because honestly, wouldn’t you?):
to kick the calendar (Polish)
to have the garden growing on one’s chest (Romanian)
to throw a spoon in the corner (Finnish)
to find one’s peace (Italian)
to see the chicories upside down (Greek)
to wear wooden pajamas (Portuguese)
to move to the other neighborhood (Spanish)
to close one’s umbrella (French)
to hand in the key (Hungarian)
to leave one’s clogs behind (Danish)
to give the pipe to (Saint) Martin (Dutch)
to meet Karl Marx (for Communist Party leaders) (Chinese)
to fall with the flowers (Japanese)

Think how the words will sound before you speak, when talking to someone who faces their mortality up close and personal, every day, all day. (Yes, I know we all do, in the grand sense of things, but you’re likely not being tested every few weeks for your tumor markers — amirite?)

I have to go now so I can investigate airline prices for a trip to Mexico for Día de los Muertos on November 1. No one understands death like the Mexicans. Why, then, are we building a wall to keep them out? (Ah! Don’t get me started! Wait! It was me that got me started. I’ll stop).