Sharon and I were talking the other day about how to
describe this season precisely. For
those of you who know us, we both work at communicating precisely. We cringe when someone refers to a “mute”
point rather than a “moot” point. Chester
Drawers was an omelet parlor in Costa Mesa; a chest of drawers is an item of
furniture for storing your clothes. A person who “could care less” still has a
ways to go before total apathy sets in while a person who “couldn’t care less”
is at the lowest point on the care-o-meter.
But I digress.
Before her surgery, I would tell people my wife has
cancer. Has. Present tense. The surgeon is confident he removed all of
the cancer including the two affected (not effected) lymph nodes. So do we now need to say Sharon had cancer? Had.
Past tense. If so, why is she
going through chemotherapy? You can’t
kill off cancer cells that don’t exist, can you? Can we say Sharon is battling cancer? But if the cancer is gone, why are we still
fighting?
What this quandary reminds us is that for all its (not it’s)
advances, medicine is still not an exact science. There are no guaranteed cures. There are many unanswered questions. We recently
watched all four seasons of the BBC series, Bramwell. (If you
decide to watch it, stop at the end of Season 3. Under no circumstances should you go on to
Season 4.) Eleanor Bramwell is one of the very few female doctors at the end of
the 19th century (that’s the 1800’s not the 1900’s.). The first 3 seasons are vivid, graphic
reminders of how far medicine has come in the last 100 years. I would not want Sharon to have breast cancer
in 1898. I would not want to get a
simple infection in 1898. But for all the
advances since then, doctors are still making educated guesses today because,
as David points out in Psalm 139, we are “fearfully and wonderfully made.” Our bodies are vastly complex and the
variables are beyond calculation.
So I return to my question.
How should we refer to Sharon’s current status? Maybe something along the lines of “Sharon
had cancer and we hope that it has been totally removed by surgery but just in
case it hasn’t we are currently taking steps that we hope will make its return
less likely.” The sentence itself shows
how complex this season is. Precisely.
3 comments:
How about "Sharon is dealing with cancer." It implies she's had cancer; it doesn't indicate she's cancer-free, but that it's being treated.
Hope I didn't make any grammatical errors there...
I would say Sharon is working hopefully and diligently on cancer survival.
By the way since you brought up the subject of clear communication- does exact science really exist? ;)
Ron,only in theory.
Post a Comment