Smile! You've got cancer

[Guest guest]

Breast cancer, I can now report, did not make me prettier or stronger,

more feminine or spiritual. What it gave me, if you want to call this a

" gift " , was a very personal, agonising encounter with an ideological

force in American culture that I had not been aware of before – one

that encourages us to deny reality, submit cheerfully to misfortune and

blame only ourselves for our fate.

Smile! You've got cancer

Cancer is not a problem or an illness – it's a gift. Or so Barbara

Ehrenreich was told repeatedly after her diagnosis. But the positive

thinkers are wrong, she says: sugar-coating illnesses can exact a

dreadful cost

 

Barbara Ehrenreich <http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/barbaraehrenreich>

 

The Guardian <http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian> ,

 

Saturday 2 January 2010

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/jan/02/cancer-positive-think\

ing-barbara-ehrenreich

<http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/jan/02/cancer-positive-thin\

king-barbara-ehrenreich>

[breast cancer, Barbara Ehrenreich]

Ehrenreich: 'In the lore of the disease, chemotherapy smoothes and

tightens the skin and helps you lose weight, and, when your hair comes

back it will be fuller, softer, easier to control, and perhaps a

surprising new colour.' Photograph: Stephen Voss

 

If you had asked me, just before the diagnosis of cancer

<http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/cancer> , whether I was an optimist

or a pessimist, I would have been hard-pressed to answer. But on

health-related matters, as it turned out, I was optimistic to the point

of delusion. Nothing had so far come along that could not be controlled

by diet, stretching, painkillers or, at worst, a prescription. So I was

not at all alarmed when a routine mammogram

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammography> aroused some " concern " on

the part of my gynaecologist.

 

How could I have breast cancer

<http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/breast-cancer> ? I had no known

risk factors, there was no breast cancer in the family, I'd had my

babies relatively young and nursed them both. I ate right, drank

sparingly and worked out. When the gynaecologist suggested a follow-up

mammogram four months later, I agreed only to placate her.

 

The result of the mammogram, conveyed to me by phone a day later, was

that I would need a biopsy <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biopsy> , and,

for some reason, a messy, surgical one with total anaesthesia. Still, I

was not overly perturbed and faced the biopsy like a falsely accused

witch confronting a trial by dunking: at least I would clear my name. I

called my children to inform them of the upcoming surgery and assured

them that the great majority of lumps detected by mammogram – 80%,

the radiology technician had told me – are benign.

 

My official induction into breast cancer came 10 days later with the

biopsy, from which I awoke to find the surgeon standing perpendicular to

me, at the far end of the bed, down near my feet, stating gravely,

" Unfortunately, there is a cancer. " It took me the rest of that

drug-addled day to decide that the most heinous thing about that

sentence was not the presence of cancer but the absence of me – for

I, Barbara, did not enter into it even as a cation, a geographical

reference point. I had been replaced by it, was the surgeon's

implication.

 

I know women who followed up their diagnoses with weeks or months of

self-study, mastering their options, interviewing doctor after doctor,

assessing the damage to be expected from the available treatments. But I

could tell from a few hours of investigation that the career of a breast

cancer patient had been pretty well mapped out in advance: you may get

to negotiate the choice between lumpectomy

<http://www.breastcancer.org/treatment/surgery/lumpectomy/> and

mastectomy <http://www.breastcancer.org/treatment/surgery/mastectomy/> ,

but lumpectomy is commonly followed by weeks of radiation, and in either

case if the lymph nodes <http://www.thelymphnodes.com/> turn out, upon

dissection, to be invaded – or " involved, " as it's less

threateningly put – you're doomed to months of chemotherapy

<http://www.chemotherapy.com/treating_with_chemo/treating_with_chemo.jsp\

> , an intervention that is on a par with using a sledge hammer to swat

mosquitoes.

 

The pressure was on, from doctors and loved ones, to do something right

away – kill it, get it out now. The endless exams, the bone scan to

check for metastases <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metastasis> , the

hi-tech heart test to see if I was strong enough to withstand

chemotherapy – all these blurred the line between selfhood and

thing-hood anyway, organic and inorganic, me and it. As my cancer career

unfolded, I would, the helpful pamphlets explained, become a composite

of the living and the dead – an implant to replace the breast, a wig

to replace the hair. And then what will I mean when I use the word " I " ?

I fell into a state of unreasoning passive aggressivity: they found it,

let them fix it.

 

Fortunately, no one has to go through this alone. Forty years ago,

before Betty Ford <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betty_Ford> , Rose

Kushner <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rose_Kushner> , Betty Rollin

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betty_Rollin> and other pioneer patients

spoke out, breast cancer was a dread secret, endured in silence and

euphemised in obituaries as a " long illness " . Today, however, it's the

biggest disease on the cultural map, bigger than Aids, cystic fibrosis

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cystic_fibrosis> or spinal injury, bigger

even than those more prolific killers of women – heart disease, lung

cancer, and stroke. There are hundreds of websites devoted to it, not to

mention newsletters, support groups and a whole genre of first-person

breast cancer books.

 

The first thing I discovered as I waded out into the relevant sites is

that not everyone views the disease with horror and dread. Instead, the

appropriate attitude is upbeat and even eagerly acquisitive. There is, I

found, a significant market for all things breast cancer-related. You

can dress in pink-beribboned sweatshirts, denim shirts, pyjamas,

lingerie, aprons, shoelaces and socks; accessorise with pink rhinestone

brooches, scarves, caps, earrings and bracelets; and brighten up your

home with breast cancer candles, coffee mugs, wind chimes and

night-lights. " Awareness " beats secrecy and stigma, of course, but I

couldn't help noticing that the existential space in which a friend had

earnestly advised me to " confront [my] mortality " bore a striking

resemblance to a shopping centre.

 

This is not entirely a case of cynical merchants exploiting the sick.

Some of the breast cancer accessories are made by breast cancer

survivors themselves, and in most cases a portion of the sales goes to

breast cancer research. It is also clear that the ultrafeminine theme of

the breast cancer marketplace – the prominence, for example, of

cosmetics and jewellery – could be understood as a response to the

treatments' disastrous effects on one's looks. There is no doubt,

though, that all the prettiness and pinkness is meant to inspire a

positive outlook.

 

I needed whatever help I could get, and found myself searching

obsessively for practical tips on hair loss, how to select a

chemotherapy regimen, what to wear after surgery and eat when the scent

of food sucks. There was, I soon discovered, far more than I could

usefully absorb, for thousands of the afflicted have posted their

stories, beginning with the lump or bad mammogram, proceeding through

the agony of the treatments, pausing to mention the sustaining forces of

family, humour and religion, and ending, in almost all cases, with an

upbeat message for the terrified neophyte.

 

I couldn't seem to get enough of these tales, reading on with panicky

fascination about everything that can go wrong – septicemia

<http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/001355.htm> , ruptured

implants, startling recurrences a few years after the completion of

treatments, " mets " (metastases) to vital organs, and – what scared

me most in the short term – " chemobrain " or the cognitive

deterioration that sometimes accompanies chemotherapy. I compared myself

with everyone, selfishly impatient with those whose conditions were less

menacing, shivering over those who had reached Stage IV (there is no

Stage V), constantly assessing my chances.

 

But, despite all the helpful information, the more fellow victims I

discovered and read, the greater my sense of isolation grew. No one

among the bloggers and book writers seemed to share my sense of outrage

over the disease and the available treatments. What causes it and why is

it so common, especially in industrialised societies? Why don't we have

treatments that distinguish between different forms of breast cancer or

between cancer cells and normal dividing cells? In the mainstream of

breast cancer culture, there is very little anger, no mention of

possible environmental causes, and few comments about the fact that, in

all but the more advanced, metastasised cases, it is the " treatments " ,

not the disease, that cause the immediate illness and pain. In fact, the

overall tone is almost universally upbeat. The Breast Friends

<http://www.breastfriends.com/> website, for example, features a series

of inspirational quotes: " Don't cry over anything that can't cry over

you " ; " When life hands out lemons, squeeze out a smile " ; " Don't wait for

your ship to come in… swim out to meet it, " and much more of that

ilk.

 

As in the Aids movement, upon which breast cancer activism is partly

modelled, the words " patient " and " victim, " with their aura of self-pity

and passivity, have been ruled un-PC. Instead, we get verbs: those who

are in the midst of their treatments are described as " battling " or

" fighting " , sometimes intensified with " bravely " or " fiercely " –

language suggestive of Katharine Hepburn

<http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000031/bio> with her face to the wind.

Once the treatments are over, one achieves the status of " survivor " ,

which is how the women in my local support group identified themselves,

AA-style. For those who cease to be survivors, again, no noun applies.

They are said to have " lost their battle " – our lost brave sisters,

our fallen soldiers.

 

The cheerfulness of breast cancer culture goes beyond mere absence of

anger to what looks, all too often, like a positive embrace of the

disease. Writing in 2007, New York Times health columnist Jane Brody

<http://www.janebrody.net/bio.html> quoted bike racer and testicular

cancer survivor Lance Armstrong <http://www.lancearmstrong.com/> , who

said, " Cancer was the best thing that ever happened to me " , and cited a

woman asserting that " breast cancer has given me a new life. Breast

cancer was something I needed to experience to open my eyes to the joy

of living. " Betty Rollin, one of the first American women to go public

with her disease, was enlisted to testify that she has " realised that

the source of my happiness was, of all things, cancer – that cancer

had everything to do with how good the good parts of my life were " .

 

In the most extreme characterisation, breast cancer is not a problem at

all, not even an annoyance – it is a " gift " , deserving of the most

heartfelt gratitude. One survivor writes in her book The Gift Of Cancer:

A Call To Awakening

<http://www.resonantgroup.com/books/giftofcancer.html> that " cancer is

your ticket to your real life. Cancer is your passport to the life you

were truly meant to live. " And if that is not enough to make you want to

go out and get an injection of live cancer cells, she insists, " Cancer

will lead you to God. Let me say that again. Cancer is your connection

to the Divine. "

 

The effect of all this positive thinking is to transform breast cancer

into a rite of passage – not an injustice or a tragedy to rail

against but a normal marker in the life cycle, like menopause or

grandmotherhood. Everything in mainstream breast cancer culture serves,

no doubt inadvertently, to tame and normalise the disease. Indeed, you

can defy the inevitable disfigurements and come out, on the survivor

side, actually prettier, sexier, more feminine. In the lore of the

disease – shared with me by oncology

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oncology> nurses as well as by survivors

– chemotherapy smoothes and tightens the skin and helps you lose

weight, and when your hair comes back it will be fuller, softer, easier

to control, and perhaps a surprising new colour. These may be myths, but

for those willing to get with the prevailing programme, opportunities

for self-improvement abound. Breast cancer is a chance for creative

self-transformation – a makeover opportunity, in fact.

 

In this seamless world, dissent is a kind of treason. As an experiment,

I posted a statement on a message board, under the subject line " Angry " ,

briefly listing my complaints about the debilitating effects of

chemotherapy, recalcitrant insurance companies, environmental

carcinogens <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carcinogen> and, most

daringly, " sappy pink ribbons " . I received a few words of encouragement

in my fight with the insurance company, which had taken the position

that my biopsy was a kind of optional indulgence, but mostly a chorus of

rebukes. " Suzy " wrote to tell me, " I really dislike saying you have a

bad attitude towards all of this, but you do, and it's not going to help

you in the least. " " Mary " was a bit more tolerant, writing, " Barb, at

this time in your life, it's so important to put all your energies

toward a peaceful, if not happy, existence. Cancer is a rotten thing to

have happen and there are no answers for any of us as to why. But to

live your life, whether you have one more year or 51, in anger and

bitterness is such a waste... "

 

Exhortations to think positively – to see the glass half full, even

when it lies shattered on the floor – are not restricted to the pink

ribbon culture. A few years after my treatment, I ventured out into

another realm of personal calamity – the world of laid-off

white-collar workers. At the networking groups, boot camps and

motivational sessions available to the unemployed, I found unanimous

advice to abjure anger and " negativity " in favour of an upbeat, even

grateful approach to one's immediate crisis. People who had been laid

off from their jobs and were spiralling down toward poverty were told to

see their condition as an " opportunity " to be embraced. Here, too, the

promised outcome was a kind of " cure " : by being positive, a person might

not only feel better during his or her job search, but actually bring it

to a faster, happier conclusion.

 

In fact, there is no kind of problem or obstacle for which positive

thinking or a positive attitude has not been proposed as a cure. Having

trouble finding a mate? Nothing is more attractive to potential suitors

than a positive attitude, or more repellent than a negative one. Need

money? Wealth is one of the principal goals of positive thinking. There

are hundreds of self-help books expounding on how positive thinking can

" attract " money – a method supposedly so reliable that you are

encouraged to begin spending it now. Practical problems such as low

wages and unemployment are mentioned only as potential " excuses " . The

real obstacle lies in your mind.

 

Like a perpetually flashing neon sign in the background, like an

inescapable jingle, the injunction to be positive is so ubiquitous that

it's impossible to identify a single source. Oprah

<http://www.oprah.com/index> routinely trumpets the triumph of attitude

over circumstance. A Google search for " positive thinking " turns up

1.92m entries. A whole coaching industry has grown up since the mid-90s,

heavily marketed on the internet, to help people improve their attitudes

and hence, supposedly, their lives.

 

In my case, however, there was, I learned, an urgent medical reason to

embrace cancer with a smile: a " positive attitude " is supposedly

essential to recovery. During the months when I was undergoing

chemotherapy, I encountered this assertion over and over – on

websites, in books, from oncology nurses and fellow sufferers. Eight

years later, it remains almost axiomatic, within the breast cancer

culture, that survival hinges on " attitude " . One study found 60% of

women who had been treated for the disease attributing their continued

survival to a " positive attitude " . In articles and on websites,

individuals routinely take pride in this supposedly lifesaving mental

state.

 

" Experts " of various sorts offer a plausible-sounding explanation for

the salubrious properties of cheerfulness. A recent e-zine article

entitled Breast Cancer Prevention Tips

<http://ezinearticles.com/?Breast-Cancer-Prevention-Tips & id=199110>

– and the notion of breast cancer " prevention " should itself set off

alarms, since there is no known means of prevention – for example,

advises that: " A simple positive and optimistic attitude has been shown

to reduce the risk of cancer. This will sound amazing to many people;

however, it will suffice to explain that several medical studies have

demonstrated the link between a positive attitude and an improved immune

system. "

 

You've probably read that assertion so often, in one form or another,

that it glides by without a moment's thought about what the immune

system is, how it might be affected by emotions and what, if anything,

it could do to fight cancer. The link between the immune system, cancer,

and the emotions was cobbled together somewhat imaginatively in the 70s.

It had been known for some time that extreme stress could debilitate

certain aspects of the immune system. Torture a lab animal long enough,

as the famous stress investigator Hans Selye

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Selye> did in the 30s, and it

becomes less healthy and resistant to disease. It was apparently a short

leap, for many, to the conclusion that positive feelings might be the

opposite of stress – capable of boosting the immune system and

providing the key to health, whether the threat is a microbe or a

tumour.

 

You can see the theory's appeal. First, the idea of a link between

subjective feelings and the disease gave the breast cancer patient

something to do. Instead of waiting passively for the treatments to kick

in, she had her own work to do – on herself. At the same time, it

created expanded opportunities in the cancer research and treatment

industry: not only surgeons and oncologists were needed, but behavioral

scientists, therapists, motivational counsellors and people willing to

write exhortatory self-help books.

 

The dogma, however, did not survive further research. In the May 2007

issue of Psychological Bulletin

<http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/bul/index.aspx> , James Coyne

<http://discovermagazine.com/2008/feb/hope-may-be-useless-against-cancer\

> and two co-authors published the results of a systematic review of

all the literature on the supposed effects of psychotherapy on cancer.

The idea was that psychotherapy, like a support group, should help the

patient improve her mood and decrease her level of stress. But Coyne and

his coauthors found the existing literature full of " endemic problems " .

" If cancer patients want psychotherapy or to be in a support group, they

should be given the opportunity to do so, " Coyne said in a summary of

his research. " There can be lots of emotional and social benefits. But

they should not seek such experiences solely on the expectation that

they are extending their lives. "

 

It could be argued that positive thinking can't hurt, that it might even

be a blessing to the sorely afflicted. Who would begrudge the optimism

of a dying person who clings to the hope of a last-minute remission? Or

of a bald and nauseated chemotherapy patient who imagines that the

cancer experience will end up giving her a more fulfilling life? Unable

to actually help cure the disease, psychologists looked for ways to

increase such positive feelings about cancer. If you can't count on

recovering, you should at least come to see your cancer as a positive

experience.

 

But rather than providing emotional sustenance, the sugar-coating of

cancer can exact a dreadful cost. First, it requires the denial of

understandable feelings of anger and fear, all of which must be buried

under a cosmetic layer of cheer. This is a great convenience for health

workers and even friends of the afflicted, who might prefer fake cheer

to complaining, but it is not so easy on the afflicted. One 2004 study

<http://www.apa.org/monitor/feb04/benefit.aspx> even found, in complete

contradiction to the tenets of positive thinking, that women who

perceive more benefits from their cancer " tend to face a poorer quality

of life – including worse mental functioning – compared with

women who do not perceive benefits from their diagnoses. "

 

Besides, it takes effort to maintain the upbeat demeanor expected by

others – effort that can no longer be justified as a contribution to

long-term survival. Consider the woman who wrote to Deepak Chopra

<http://www.chopra.com/> that her breast cancer had spread to the bones

and lungs: " Even though I follow the treatments, have come a long way in

unburdening myself of toxic feelings, have forgiven everyone, changed my

lifestyle to include meditation, prayer, proper diet, exercise, and

supplements, the cancer keeps coming back. Am I missing a lesson here

that it keeps reoccurring? I am positive I am going to beat it, yet it

does get harder with each diagnosis to keep a positive attitude. "

 

Chopra's response: " As far as I can tell, you are doing all the right

things to recover. You just have to continue doing them until the cancer

is gone for good. I know it is discouraging to make great progress only

to have it come back again, but sometimes cancer is simply very

pernicious and requires the utmost diligence and persistence to

eventually overcome it. "

 

But others in the cancer care business have begun to speak out against

what one has called " the tyranny of positive thinking " . When a 2004

study <http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/5780.php> found no

survival benefits for optimism among lung cancer patients, its lead

author, Penelope Schofield <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15022297>

, wrote: " We should question whether it is valuable to encourage

optimism if it results in the patient concealing his or her distress in

the misguided belief that this will afford survival benefits... If a

patient feels generally pessimistic... it is important to acknowledge

these feelings as valid and acceptable. "

 

Whether repressed feelings are themselves harmful, as many psychologists

claim, I'm not so sure, but without question there is a problem when

positive thinking " fails " and the cancer spreads or eludes treatment.

Then the patient can only blame herself: she is not being positive

enough; possibly it was her negative attitude that brought on the

disease in the first place.

 

I, at least, was saved from this additional burden by my persistent

anger – which would have been even stronger if I had suspected, as I

do now, that my cancer was iatrogenic

<http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/IATROGENIC> , that is, caused

by the medical profession. When I was diagnosed, I had been taking

hormone replacement therapy

<http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/hormonereplacementtherapy.html> for

almost eight years, prescribed by doctors who avowed it would prevent

heart disease, dementia, and bone loss. Further studies revealed in 2002

that HRT increases the risk of breast cancer

<http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2003/aug/08/science.sciencenews> , and, as

the number of women taking it dropped sharply in the wake of this news,

so did the incidence of breast cancer. So bad science may have produced

the cancer in the first place, just as the bad science of positive

thinking plagued me throughout my illness.

 

Breast cancer, I can now report, did not make me prettier or stronger,

more feminine or spiritual. What it gave me, if you want to call this a

" gift " , was a very personal, agonising encounter with an ideological

force in American culture that I had not been aware of before – one

that encourages us to deny reality, submit cheerfully to misfortune and

blame only ourselves for our fate.

 

• Extracted from Smile Or Die: How Positive Thinking Fooled America

And The World, by Barbara Ehrenreich, to be published by Granta on 14

January at £10.99. To order a copy for £9.99, with free UK p & p, go

to guardian.co.uk/bookshop <http://www.guardian.co.uk/bookshop> or call

0330 333 6846. Ehrenreich will be delivering a Sunday Sermon on Optimism

at Conway Hall, London WC1 on 10 January at 11.30am. For more

information, visit theschooloflife.com/sermons

<http://www.theschooloflife.com/sermons> .