Who Gets 1000 Wishes?

Actually living with cancer gives a person a different perspective on many things. If you’ve never had it you can be the most kind-hearted person and not really understand what it feels like unless someone tells you. So I’m going to tell you what part of that journey feels like.

You walk into the doctor’s office being your own self, with likes and dislikes, plans, preoccupations, hopes for yourself and your loved ones, a colorful history in which you had successes and failures. You’ve learned from your mistakes and you’re wiser and more mature than you’ve ever been. There are all sorts of things you’re going to do later that day, the next day, next week, next month, next year. Then you get a diagnosis of cancer and you are instantly transformed from being your own unique self to a cancer patient.

You watch people’s faces as they push most of what they know about you out of the little box they have reserved for you in their mind and replace it with “has cancer.” You go into the hospital for surgery and you’re stripped of your clothing, your wallet, and your wedding ring. Then they give you anesthesia that strips away your mind. After that more things are done to your body and your body does more things in response and none of it is what you want, it’s completely out of your hands. But the “you” inside your heart is there going, here I am.

Time passes, there are other treatments, and you feel like you don’t own your body anymore. It’s some sort of lab experiment you happen to inhabit.

The healthiest thing someone with cancer can do is to own their own body and life again. Be your own unique self, and feel like more than a patient. Not let cancer define you even if others sometimes want to do that to you.

That Facebook posting says, “A person has 1000 wishes, a cancer patient only has one: to get better! I know 97% of you won't post this as your status, but my friends will be the 3% that do, in honor of someone who has lost their life to cancer or is battling cancer right now.”

People keep posting that because they want to honor people with cancer but if you actually have cancer it’s really kind of an insult. It’s basically saying people with cancer have ceased to be complete human beings and are now only patients.

I wonder if it was written by a child, to be frank, partly because of the made-up statistic (“97%”), and partly because of the subtly coercive language which reminds me of sixth grade. You know, if you’re my friend you will do what I say.

I know my friends who have re-posted this have kind hearts. I just wanted to give you all food for thought.