A recognizable image for Suzan Koenis, she was diagnosed with acute leukemia in 2011 when she was 22. “When people say to me that I have won the battle against cancer, I just think: what a bad thing to say. As if you are failing if you die from it. Then you haven’t fought enough or something?”
When doctors discovered acute leukemia, things took off at a rapid pace. “It happened to me all of a sudden,” she says. Koenis had to start chemo immediately. “The prospects were good, provided there was a stem cell donor.” Her brother was able to donate stem cells and a year later Koenis was declared cured.
The chance that the cancer will come back in her is small. It has left its mark, both physically and mentally. But all this has nothing to do with ‘fighting’, Koenis emphasizes. “It’s not that people who are dying haven’t fought harder, everyone wants the same outcome. And that is survival.”
Research into metaphors
Koenis is far from the only one who finds the statement ‘the fight against cancer’ offensive, says linguist Dunja Wackers of the UvA. She spoke to people about it for her research into metaphors in the medical world. “People don’t always recognize themselves in that,” she tells Editie NL. “A chemo treatment, for example, sometimes doesn’t feel like a fight at all, but more like something a patient can only endure, hoping for the best.”
Wackers: “Metaphors such as ‘struggle’ and ‘fight’ often place a lot of responsibility on the patient for his or her own recovery or healing. If the cancer is incurable, this can evoke feelings of guilt or shame.”
Not fair
For that reason, KWF no longer uses the word ‘fight’ in its slogan. “Ten years ago we had the slogan ‘Together at the forefront of the fight’,” says Linda Sumner of KWF to Editie NL. “We see that many patients do not think it is fair to call it a struggle. That would mean that the people who heal fight harder than the people who die from it. That is of course not correct.” KWF now has the slogan: Against cancer, for life.
Linguist Wackers thinks it is important to point out that such a metaphor is not offensive to everyone. “The image of ‘struggle’ feels appropriate for some patients, for example they draw strength or fighting spirit from it.
Wackers certainly does not advocate a different metaphor. She especially wants to create awareness that some statements can be hurtful and harmful, no matter how well-intentioned. “And that patients can also decide for themselves whether they see their illness as a ‘struggle’ or perhaps something else.”
2024-02-26 13:25:28
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