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A Menu of Metaphors for Living with Cancer

  • William Romanowski
  • Apr 7
  • 6 min read

April 2025

(5-minute read)

Keywords: cancer; metaphors; battle; journey; crucible

 

To describe feelings and experiences that are difficult to express, we often use metaphors.[1]


According to one study, the most common metaphors used to talk about cancer are journey-themed or war-related (fighting, battles). The latter tend to be more effective with groups (and fundraising) than individuals, who can feel “disempowered” and without “weapons.” Militaristic metaphors can also make patients whose treatment is failing feel like they are at fault for not fighting hard enough to win the battle.

 

Journeying metaphors can give people a sense of companionship, traveling with others, and sense of purpose in being able to plan the journey “one step at a time.” Others, however, associate journey with adventure, and cancer is a reluctant journey, even “the trip from hell.” One person described it like “trying to go uphill in a coach without its back wheels.” For these folks the journey metaphor expressed “a sense of helplessness and frustration.”

 

I can understand both of these metaphors.

 

I have supportive family, friends, and healthcare providers. Our lives have become entangled in different ways making me feel as if we’re on a kind of pilgrimage together like the travelers in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.

 


During a treatment, flat on my back in the throes of Rituxan, an immunotherapy drug, I joked, “The Rituxans are after me. The Rituxans are after me.” Even though I was sick as a dog, my wife and I laughed. Later, I learned that war (and game) metaphors are among the most common used to motivate children to actively fight cancer.

 

My body is under biological assault with cancer cells on seek-and-destroy missions. Those cells are vicious. They care not one wit for who they are attacking. All that matters is their survival. That makes having cancer such a primal experience – live or die. The cancer cells or me. I think that’s why even though I am on a well-worn path, at some deep level, I am a solitary traveler on this journey. And I have moments when I have never felt so alone.

 

No one metaphor works perfectly for everyone and the author of the study I mentioned suggests creating a “menu of metaphors” to help different cancer patients cope with their disease.

 

Here’s mine.

 

A Crucible

In my experience, cancer is a crucible.

The dictionary definition of crucible is a ceramic or metal container in which metals or other substances are heated to a very high temperature to burn off impurities. It is also a severe test, often used as a metaphor for a significant and difficult trial that can lead to a personal transformation.


With my background in film and culture studies, when I think of journey what springs to mind is the classic hero’s journey, a story template popularized by Joseph Campbell in his book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces (I’ll say more about this in a future blog post). He describes the narrative pattern as:

 

A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.[2] 

If that sounds familiar to fans of adventure films like Star Wars, it also bears some resemblance to the cancer journey. You leave the ordinary world behind and enter a mysterious one of medical procedures in unfamiliar locales. Sterile healthcare facilities, sparsely, but purposely decorated to create a calming atmosphere. It’s a very organized world where you encounter strangers, some wearing white lab coats, others “scrubs,” who, against everything you’ve ever learned, you have to trust immediately and deeply. They are and become even more privy to intimate details of your life and speak a (somewhat) foreign language. Along the way you become companions with some of them.

 

They teach you about the danger that has inexplicably threatened your life, and in one shape or form, others you see in waiting rooms, their full names remaining secret. You learn about elixirs (Expecto Ptronum!), some with names containing 24 of the 26 letters in the English alphabet. The days ahead will be difficult, downright hellish, but hopefully you will return triumphantly to your ordinary life.

 

Crucible and Journey

Here’s what Google AI had to say (lightly edited) about a crucible and journey.

 

A crucible can be seen as a pivotal, transformative moment within a journey, acting as a severe test or trial that forces a person (or character) to confront their inner self, values, and beliefs, ultimately leading to personal growth and a deeper understanding of their purpose. 

 

  • Just as a crucible melts and refines metal, a crucible moment in a journey forces one to undergo intense hardship, pushing them beyond their comfort zone and potentially leading to significant personal change. 

  • Facing a crucible often requires deep self-examination, making you confront your flaws and motivations, similar to the introspection a protagonist experiences during a journey. 

  • A crucible serves as a test of one’s integrity and resilience, revealing their moral compass and true nature under pressure. 

  • Like a key plot point in a story, a crucible experience can act as a turning point, marking a significant shift in perspective and trajectory.

 

The crucible metaphor also evokes the familiar image in Psalm 23, the valley of the shadow of death, which I learned is an actual place in the Judean desert. Apparently, the valley is so deep and narrow that the sun only hits the bottom at high noon (and temperatures can top 40 C/104 F during the summer months). It’s reputation for being a perilous place came from either the harsh climate or for being dangerous for travelers who used it as a shortcut between Jerusalem and Jericho – the rocky terrain and thieves with hideouts in the valley’s caves. Not exactly on my bucket list.


Wadi Qelt, Valley of the Shadow of Death
Wadi Qelt, Valley of the Shadow of Death

I imagine the valley of the shadow of death to be something like J. R. R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth. A whereabouts with some relatively safe places, but overall a perilous place to travel through, fraught with potential danger. But according to one visitor, “Despite the valley’s terrifying Biblical name, this place is also one of the most beautiful locations in the Judean desert,” with its jagged cliffs, streams of water, wildflower blooming, and birds singing. Yeah, well, it’s still not going on my bucket list.

 

Conclusion

A long, long time ago, somewhere around 50 to 135 AD and way before gender inclusive language was in vogue, the Greek Stoic philosopher, Epictetus said,

 

“Circumstances don’t make the man, they only reveal him to himself.”

 

As much as anything else, cancer brought me face to face with the kind of person I am, or I should say, have become. I contemplated my past. The good, the bad. The gladness, the sorrow. The joy, and I’m sorry to say, the shame. I became not only more aware of myself, but the fragility of life. Suddenly, I was more vulnerable and the world a more threatening place.

 

To navigate this uncharted territory, I thought long and hard, asking myself: How then shall I live a meaningful life now that I have chronic, life-threatening disease?

 

Somewhere along the way, I can’t point to an exact moment, I decided to do this, to make my way in this crucible by having courage, determination, integrity, and when appropriate, a bit of good humor.

 

The Rituxans are after me! The Rituxans are after me!


If you enjoy this article, I encourage you to share it with friends and visit my website for others like it.


Footnotes

[1] This is the second in a series of blog posts based on Princess of Wales Kate Middleton’s video message about her cancer experience.

[2] Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1949), 30.


Photo Credits (in order of appearance)

 

William D. Romanowski is an award-winning commentator on the intersection of religion and popular culture and author of a number of books, including Reforming Hollywood: How Protestants Fought for Freedom at the Movies and Eyes Wide Open: Looking for God in Popular Culture. With his continuing commentary, he is trading footnotes for fiction, writing novels under the pen name (or nom de plume, as the French put it), Patmos Rhodes.



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