For Cancer Patients, A Struggle to Prolong Hope as Well as Life

Why is it that Americans speak of trying to whip cancer, show courage in the face of it, and die after a long battle against it? Why at the same time do we tell ourselves cancer is the new diabetes, a chronic disease we can have for a lifetime?

It's because what F. Scott Fitzgerald said about the rich -- "They are different from you and me" -- is true of cancer among the multitude of bodily afflictions. We think it's different, too.

Despite more effective methods of treating cancer, the end results remain largely the same.

Despite more effective methods of treating cancer, the end results remain largely the same. (By Chris Hondros -- Getty Images)

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We take cancer personally. We talk about it in terms we would never use for heart disease, which actually kills more people, or stroke, the third most common cause of American death. We impute to it something like evil intent, and to some extent we make our response to it a measure of human character.

Cancer is the physiological equivalent of war -- hand-to-hand combat, specifically. Cancer talk often invokes a soldier's virtues, not only physical strength but a "fighting spirit."

But as in combat, there's a fair amount of wishful thinking and intentional disregard of calculable risk. There aren't many statisticians in foxholes. There is a curious lack of them in cancer clinics, too. Truth may not be the first casualty in the war on cancer, but it sustains a fair amount of collateral damage.

All of this was on display in the past two weeks as Elizabeth Edwards, wife of presidential candidate John Edwards, and Tony Snow, the White House press secretary, announced their cancers -- hers breast, his colon -- had reappeared.