The Rhetoric of Cancer

by Dennis Betito Jr.
2013-14724

Cancer, medically known as malignant neoplasia, is one of the few diseases I really fear. Part because my family's history on both sides (My mother accrued thyroid cancer when I was about 4 years old.), part because of my sheer awe for the extremely unique way it can destroy a person's body. Cells growing and dividing uncontrollably felt like an ironic - if not poetic, way to die.

Of course, my interest in cancer pushes me to learn more about its diagnosis procedures and medications. Rhetoric of Cancer tackled this really diverse topic and gave it a simple voice. It tackles the apathy people display towards the cancer in themselves. Technically, cancer is a part of them, and we know about how everybody wants everyone to learn to accept themselves. People accepted the cancer, and wondered why they ever fought it in the first place.

On a similar note, I would like to quote John Green's The Fault in Our Stars, a heart warming/wrenching book about teenage cancer patients: "What am I at war with? My cancer. And what is my cancer? My cancer is me. The tumors are made of me. They're made of me as surely as my brain and my heart is made of me. It is a civil war with a predetermined winner." Cancer is almost always terminal. When it's "cured", the patient has to undergo medication for months, and sometimes, even years. Maybe succumbing to it, accepting it, and just continuing to live is the best option.

Of course, I may never have to make a choice between living with cancer and living on medications for the rest of my life. I hope I will never have to.