Staying Strong
People in general -- family, friends, doctors, fellow cancer patients -- often talk about the concept of staying strong. It's a vague little concept with no further instructions, making it both meaningless and substantial. It can mean anything to anyone without defining anything, but its pervasive presence in cancer-related conversations is undeniable.
In my experience, staying strong is a reminder to perform wellness and happiness in order to make others less uncomfortable with the fact that I'm dying. When I talk or joke about dying in order to normalize it or to cope, most people in my life* are shocked. They get visibly upset, and say things like, "Don't say that," "That isn't funny," or simply, "No!" They take my genuine attempt at staying strong and remind me that I should instead return to performative strength -- the quiet noble suffering of the model cancer patient.
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| Source: disappointingaffirmations |
Before I had an existential crisis and dropped out, I went to McMaster University at the same time as the founding members of the Arkells. I saw them a lot when they were first starting out at small local venues and have been a fan of theirs ever since. Their 2021 album "Blink Once" is a love letter to another McMaster student who was a dear friend of lead singer Max Kerman, Dr. Barbara Tatham, who died of cancer in 2019. You should really click that link, because she was a remarkable woman whose legacy should be spread to as many people as possible. The standout track on "Blink Once" is called "Strong" and is directly dedicated to Dr. Tatham, written and sung by Kerman and accompanied by a solo piano.
I have very mixed feelings about this song. On one hand, it is a beautiful piece written with love by someone who obviously recognized the strength his friend displayed while fighting an unbeatable cancer. On the other hand, it makes me a bit jealous that someone else was able to have the kind of genuine strength in the face of this terrible disease that I can only mimic.
And dance with me tonight
Like everything's alright
I took the hit and I got back up
Do it again with all that I've got
Here's the rules
Stay strong for me and I'll stay strong for you
Summer is here, but it's slipping away
Why would we want to waste a good day?
Here's the rules
Stay strong for me and I'll stay strong for you
It's difficult to relate to this version of staying strong when I often can't get back up after even a minor "hit" like getting bloodwork done. A minor procedure like getting a zoladex injection sends me into a major depressive episode and requires me to completely numb myself with ativan and TCH. I'm too embarrassed to even describe here the fuguelike state I enter when I receive news that my cancer has spread. I "waste" so many "good" days because I'm in pain, I'm exhausted, I can't do things the way I used to, it would be more fun if I weren't sick, I would need too much help, it's a burden on others -- basically, it's easier for everyone if I just stay home in bed.**
So if I'm not this kind of strong, am I just weak? Is it the same predisposition to weakness that caused me to have an existential crisis and drop out of McMaster which makes me unable to stay strong in the face of this illness? Were these fellow students predisposed to be resilient enough to achieve graduation, greatness, and this grand inner strength? Did cancer break me, or did I allow it to? How much longer can I perform strength before the truth is revealed?
Even when everyone around me is doing their best to stay strong for me, I'm too weak to stay strong for them.
**yes, I've been diagnosed, therapized and medicated for years at this point; cowardice seems to be my baseline personality.
