survivor guilt

On the face of it, this headline should be a cause for celebration.  But it’s not.  Not entirely.

Last night Anniemay and I were busy making yet more plans for 2015.  This year I finally feel that I’ve got my life back - or at least some semblance of it.  I’d just finished booking accommodation for a bike trip round Flanders in the Summer to visit some of the Great War sites, when the phone rings.  It’s the wife of a friend.  His cancer is not responding to treatment and the prognosis is not good - he has perhaps 18 months.

I can’t begin to imagine how he feels reading this headline.

My own views are mixed.  While it’s true that survival rates have increased dramatically and our understanding of the disease has greatly improved, the premise of the headline is based on too many ‘ifs and buts’.  If we carry on spending at the rate we currently are and if we change our lifestyle (for those cancers that are lifestyle dependent).  But if we don’t ……

My reaction to this headline is also tempered by guilt.  Not just for our friend but for all those who don’t wake up like I do each day wanting to shout out to the world how much I like being alive.

It didn’t occur to me that partners could become afflicted with survivor guilt until Anniemay admitted to it when her brother died two years ago.  She had put herself in her sister-in-law’s place and did not like what she saw.

I have a book on my shelves written by an oncologist in New York.  He describes a petri dish sitting on his desk that contains live breast cancer cells.  The woman from whom the cells were taken, died over 40 years ago.  The cancer cells live on.  I assume they are not prone to survivor guilt.