When Fighting Cancer, Winning Means More Than Surviving

The following is adapted from Better Off Bald by Andrea Wilson Woods.

I used to think that in the fight against cancer, winning meant going into remission — it meant being cured and putting cancer behind you for good.

But supporting my sister, Adrienne, as she battled advanced liver cancer at age fifteen taught me that you can win in more ways than one. Not everyone survives cancer in the long run, but you can win day by day in the way you fight the disease and in how you spend the time you have left.

I learned to redefine winning, and I believe you can find power and strength in defining it for yourself, too.

A New Definition of Winning

I remember the day someone told me there might be a different way to think about winning. It was shortly after Adrienne’s diagnosis. We were at the hospital with my best friend at the time, Anya, who was on the phone with her mother, Dr. Sofia Sárközi, a doctor at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

When Anya told her mother Adrienne’s diagnosis, her mother was silent. Dr. Sárközi always had a scientific, rational, non-emotional approach to life that served her well in her profession. When her mother said nothing, Anya was surprised and felt her reaction was disproportionate to the situation. She had never known her mother to react that way before.

“It’s one more thing, one more battle to win. We’ve overcome so many different problems. This is just one more problem,” Anya said.

Dr. Sárközi replied, “You will win if you measure winning in terms of having good days and good hours.”

“What are you saying? How long is she going to live?”

“Nobody can tell you that. Nobody knows how long anyone is going to live.”

I didn’t accept it at the time, but as Adrienne’s condition worsened, I realized we had to take winning our battles a day at a time, even if ultimately, we wouldn’t win the war. We won in ways other than survival.

Celebrate the Small but Meaningful Wins

At the midpoint of Adrienne’s disease, after she’d received numerous treatments and blood transfusions, I understood what Dr. Sárközi meant when she talked about measuring winning in terms of good days and good hours.

When Adrienne’s counts were up and she felt good, like her old self, we were winning on those days. When I saw her white blood cell count had increased to 6,000 in three days, joy flooded my heart for what was the smallest of victories.

Adrienne — wanting to go shopping; reading for school; studying for her driver’s permit; laughing at the TV show South Park; instant messaging her friends online; going over her allotted time on the computer; talking too long on the phone with her boyfriend; even arguing with me — these activities were all triumphs because they represented normal teenage behavior. Each one was a sign. We were winning.

Find Your Personal Victories

How else can you win against cancer?

You can win by fighting the disease on your terms. Continuing to do the activities you enjoy, fighting to maintain a sense of normalcy, and fulfilling dreams you’ve had for a long time are all victories.

Find strength in the opportunities you have to live life on your own terms. Cancer is not a game; it’s a disease, and you can define winning however you want.

We declared war on cancer, and we — Adrienne’s family, friends, peers, teachers, hell the world — lost because we no longer have her. We lost Adrienne, but did she lose?

Adrienne never let cancer take away her spirit no matter how hard it tried. Even when she had no strength left, she kept fighting. She not only lived her life to its fullest, but also took control, and in that way, she won.

For more advice on finding strength in the fight against cancer, you can find Better Off Bald on Amazon.

Andrea Wilson Woods is a writer who loves to tell stories, and a patient advocate who founded the nonprofit Blue Faery: The Adrienne Wilson Liver Cancer Association. Andrea is the CEO and co-founder of Cancer University, a for-profit, social benefit, digital health company. With Cancer U, Andrea synergizes her talents of coaching, writing, teaching, and advocacy. For over ten years, Andrea worked in the education field as a teacher and professor for public and private schools as well as universities. Andrea obtained her master’s degree in professional writing from the University of Southern California; her nonfiction writing has won national awards.