Surviving cancer is a big deal, and it’s hard not to pretend it is a huge part of your life and identity. At the same time, a lot of people would just as soon leave that part of their lives behind; all the questions and comments only serve to remind of painful treatments and perhaps just how close they came to dying.
I have never shied away from the fact that I am a leukemia survivor and now a stem cell transplant recipient. In fact, my survivorship has been a part of my online identity for a while now, even going so far as to explicitly celebrate it as part of my LinkedIn profile, as if it were a professional qualification.
But isn’t it? I mean aren’t the experiences we have – the shock, the frustration, the perseverance – worth something? Is it wrong to think that somehow cancer survivors have a unique perspective on life and the world?
Of course, like any experience, just surviving cancer doesn’t guarantee you’ll learn anything from it. After all, there are lots of people with many years of varied experiences as managers who still manage to be useless at it. Likewise, I know there are plenty of people who survive cancer and go right back to their old lives, for better or worse, as if nothing had happened. When presented with an opportunity to learn, some people just don’t take it.
I do think the challenges, suffering and joy of cancer survivorship are worth celebrating and advertising. After all, I am a cancer survivor. Anyone who isn’t prepared to accept that perhaps isn’t someone I necessarily want to be spending a lot of time with. More significant, and probably what more people worry about, any potential employer who thinks the risks of hiring a cancer survivor (a pre-diseased employee) outweigh the benefits in experience and maturity gained from the experience is perhaps not an employer I necessarily want to be associated with.
Denying or hiding the experience of cancer is a bit like pretending that one doesn’t bring political, social or religious biases into one’s life and work. You can try to be something you’re not, or believe something you don’t, but at the end of the day it’s almost impossible. It will come out. And in the mean time, the only one who is suffering is you.
If there is one thing I have learned from facing a potentially fatal illness, it’s that one of the worst things you can do for your health and well-being is waste a bunch of energy trying to be somebody you’re not, or trying to please people who think you need to change. It’s easy to say, I know, and I can’t claim to be perfect at it, but remembering it is very valuable when times get tough.
So I’m not afraid to tell people about my illness. Perhaps there will be opportunities that will pass me by because of it, because of people being afraid of me being infirm, unreliable, doomed. But I’m betting there will be at least as many opportunities that will present themselves precisely because I am being honest, genuine and true to myself. After all, what characteristics could be more important than honesty and integrity? They go right to the heart of who a person is. And for me to try to hide or minimize my experiences would not be honest, would not contribute to my integrity as a person.
My name is Stuart, and I am proud of and empowered by having survived leukemia!
Take that!
So, Canada’s medal haul yesterday was apparently tied for the highest single day total for us in the Olympics. The question is, so what? Would anything have been any different if we had been shut out? What, at the end of the day, does it mean for a country to win Olympics medals? What does it mean for Canada to succeedat the Olympics?
There has been a lot of talk about Canada’s “Own the Podium” program, and the goal of “winning” the Olympic medal count. Questions are asked about whether we invest enough in our elite athletes, and whether existing investment will or should continue. It seems to me that this begs the question, what exactly is the goal of producing successful elite athletes? Is the idea that we need elite athletes to inspire our youth to participate in sport? Why then do we not worry about our support for our elite scientists? How about our policy analysts? Our Early Childhood Educators? Surely the contribution made by these groups to society is more significant and important, especially given that our country is still plagued by homelessness, poverty, illness and inequality.
One could look at sports such as speed skating, cross-country skiing and biathalon and say, perhaps, that encouraging excellence in these sports fosters skills that could actually be used in the real world. It’s a bit of a stretch, but plausible. But bobsledding? Ski jumping? Curling? They may be all fine and good as sports, but what do we prove by funding athletes to excel at them? Participate in them, sure. Lots of fun. But important? Not really.
And of course there is men’s hockey, Canada’s “big deal.” If we win gold in hockey, with a team loaded with multi-million dollar professional athletes, should we be excited? Did we prove anything? I can still remember when the Olympics used to be about “amateur” athletics and the debate began about allowing professional “dream teams” to compete. If anyone doubts that the Olympics is more about commercial exploitation and profit than athletic excellence, they need look no further than the slippery slope of its professionalization and the inclusion of dramatic and tv-friendly sports such as snowboarding and skeleton.
And, at the end of the day, if that’s what the Olympics are going to be about, fine. Who am I to decide what others want? All I ask is we stop pretending that we’re doing something we’re not. We’re not “bringing the world together,” “celebrating global community” and all that. If it was about global community and cooperation, bidding for the Olympics wouldn’t be a viscious and absurdly expensive competition and hosting the Olympics would require dollar amounts approaching and exceeding government spending on social and other programs. And, if the Olympics truely was a global celebration, countries wouldn’t gloat and glorify the failings of other countries in hosting the Olympics.
So lets celebrate the accomplishments of our athletes, as we should celebrate the accomplishments of so many other Canadians. But let’s not pretend that “owning” the podium matters, or is even a worthy or important policy goal.
My last post was about a donor recruitment campaign by the Armenian Bone Marrow Donor Registry (ABMDR) that I found out about through a press release published in the Armenian Reporter. In searching for more information about the ABMDR, I came across two more ABMDRs, both also donor registries: one Australian and one American.
The Australian Bone Marrow Donor Registry appears to be the primary donor registry in Australia, established in 1991. The American Bone Marrow Donor Registry, on the other hand, seems to be duplicated in function and purpose by the National Marrow Donor Program in the United States, the latter having been established in 1987, while the ABMDR was establised in 1985. I’ll have to do a little more research to figure out if there really are any differences.
Confusing as it is, it’s interesting to see the network of registries across the world, and encouraging to see that most of them seem to be very active.
