The original request was that we propose a non-violent way of describing this struggle. This is my response to that request only. I don’t agree with this approach, but I will submit to it. I wasn’t asked what I think. I was asked how to describe this in a non-violent way.

“realignment. Priorities, soul, self image, external view, even some flesh – all are getting realigned.

In business terms: an internal re-org.”

But since we’re on the subject, what I really think is that you must kick its ass. And don’t forget your advantages. This is not a struggle alone. You have an army to help you do it. From teams of specially trained doctors and technicians to teams of specially trained family and loved ones. You have the advantage. Use it.

With love, of course,

toni

It’s what I’m doing to the ants that seem to want to take over my bathroom.

Kick its ass.

And yet …

As best I understand, cancer is not an “invader” — it is, in fact, the very people who “get” it. It is one’s own cells reproducing in a harmful, mutant manner. So fighting cancer entails fighting a (contemptible) part of one’s self. Ordinarily, the more enlightened might seek to approach such an “adversary” with a gentle recognition that it is not separate from us; like Satan, perhaps. Yet ju-jitsu is unlikely to accomplish the desired results in such cases. “I cast thee out” will bring only derogatory chuckles in the modern medical context. So how does one “do battle” with one’s own self?

It’s beginning to look as if alankk needs his own blog to work this stuff out. Suffice to say that sentient beings can reach a general consensus on certain assumptions, and one of them is that cancer is “bad.” If civilization is to progress, bad things must either be made good, made irrelevant, or made to go away. With cancer, it would appear that only the last option is feasible. So, Catia, I submit that semantics are meaningless when the fundamental goal is unchanging. There will be no negotiations, no coercive diplomacy. I, and likely all others who love you, care only that this contemptible part of you be made to go away, and that the remainder stay with us for ages to come.