What It Means to be a Cancer Patient

A bizarre little controversy has bubbled up in the NBA. Charlie Villanueva, a player who has no hair due to an autoimmune condition, posted a tweet claiming that Kevin Garnett of the Boston Celtics called him a "cancer patient." I'm not that interested in the controversy- my only thought is that Lance Armstrong is all the more impressive for achieving what he has after being a cancer patient- but it illustrates something that's been on my mind recently. Cancer doesn't make you lose your hair; chemotherapy does. So much of our conception of what it means to be a cancer patient is based on the experience of going through chemotherapy. Certainly that was my understanding until last March.

In some bizarre way, I've felt that my cancer experience has been less legitimate since I haven't had to go through the hell of chemotherapy. (This has changed a bit as I've developed some miserable side effects in the last week, but I'm still not physically suffering on that same level.) This feeling is all the more perverse when you consider that I'm not going through chemo because melanoma doesn't respond to it, which makes it that much more dangerous. More to the point, the emotional toll of dealing with cancer- the uncertainty, the despair, the fear, the anxiety, the worry, and so on- is more than enough to legitimize anyone's experience, regardless of the physical challenges they face. I don't mean to make light of the physical challenges that cancer patients go through. But in my experience, the devastating part about feeling intensely sick is the ensuing sense of helplessness and despair. The physical pain only adds to the emotional agony.

In light of this, the mark of a cancer patient isn't losing one's hair or vomiting or anything that simple. A cancer patient is someone who is confronted with pain, fear, and uncertainty and somehow finds a way to keep going, perhaps because there isn't any other choice. I understand that Villanueva is sensitive about his condition, but at the end of the day being called a "cancer patient" was a tremendous compliment.