Cancer Is Like This (Part 2): Being Human Together

October 2025

(5-minute read)

Keywords: cancer, Rocky, triumph, metaphors, American myth

Sylvester Stallone, Tessa Thompson, and Michael B. Jordan promoting the movie Creed at the Philadelphia Art Museum in November 2015. This is immediately adjacent to the “Rocky Steps” made famous in the original Rocky movie.

In Creed (2015), a spinoff and continuation of the Rocky series, a battered, aged, and world-weary Rocky is diagnosed with an early case of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. An oncologist tells him “we caught this early enough that with treatment, you still have a very good chance of recovery.”

“Chemo,” Rocky says. “My wife tried that stuff. Didn’t work out so good for her.”

The way Rocky sees it, foregoing treatment is “alright,” because “dying is easy” compared to “living the way I do.” Overcoming loneliness is a constant theme in the Rocky saga, amplified by the loss of people Rocky loved and who loved him – Mickey, Apollo, Adrian, and Paulie. All have departed. In conversations with Adonis, Rocky says

“Everything I got is moved on and I’m here. But you know what? It’s okay. ‘Cause I said to myself if I break, if I’m hurt, whatever, I ain’t gonna fix it. Why bother? … You got your whole future ahead of you. Mine? …. In the past.”

Watch the scenes in Creed

Later, Adonis tells Rocky,

“You can’t throw the towel in to this cancer shit. What makes this different than any of your other fights? If I fight, you fight.”

Rocky agrees. That Adonis turns the medical facility where Rocky undergoes surgery into a training center visually associates Rocky’s cancer ordeal with Adonis’ training for his upcoming boxing match.

During the match, Adonis is taking a beating from his opponent and Rocky wants to end the fight. Adonis insists, “Don’t. Let me finish.”

With one round left, Rocky sparks Adonis’ intense passion with his own words.

“You showed me how to fight again. Gave me something to look forward to. And I’m gonna go home and fight this thing. Just like I been doing. But if I fight, you fight!”

It’s an inspiring, if fully anticipated moment in the movie. Now I ask: Is this ending sufficiently justified by the course of events in the narrative? Rocky reached a point where he did not want to continue living his life of loneliness, and having witnessed the pain Adrian endured while undergoing chemotherapy before dying from ovarian cancer – all for naught – he’d rather not take that on himself.

“This fight. I seen it before. It gets as bad as it can get. And most of the time you don’t win it.”

But this is a Rocky film for goodness sake and can only end with the protagonist(s) digging even deeper inside to find the wherewithal to fight to the finish – no matter the odds or circumstances.

If these “kick-ass” stories of ultimate triumph are motivating for some cancer patients, for others they are a very different thing than the grim realities they face, and for that reason can be discouraging, perhaps even defeatist. God forbid, but there may come a time when a patient (or healthcare surrogate) will have to consider the risks and benefits of continued treatment, a most difficult time when having courage might mean surrendering hope.

A Balancing Act

After all this, it may surprise you, but I have to confess that I can fall for a good melodrama as much as anyone else. And I also have moments as a cancer patient when I want to be independent, to rely on no one. There have been times when friends offered to deliver a meal, run an errand, or provide company. Though grateful, I politely refused preferring to do it myself even though one friend texted me, “We feel helpless and want to do something to help you.”

I have been on both sides of that equation now. It’s not easy. And I am trying – hard – to learn how to be better at balancing my needs with those of others. You lose a measure of control when you have cancer, not least the very strange experience of no longer trusting your own body. And attitudes linked with self-reliance are deeply ingrained.

That said, I like to think that much of my ordealing with cancer runs against the grain of an individualistic culture, and that that has helped me keep my situation in perspective (I made that word up, ordealing. See footnote).[1] I live on, writing, doing things with family and friends, planning some travel, while also being prepared for the worst, making sure my legal, financial, and personal affairs are all in order.

I’ve also discovered that I can help others by encouraging them to develop the same mindset for a relationship with me. No matter what I do, the reality is that my health can take a dramatic turn with the next test or scan. Realizing that, let’s all enjoy whatever time remains and make sure we have no lingering regrets.

Some Final Thoughts

Now, in my world, believing is a religiously infused term. And so for me, believing in yourself, however much it might be a positive attitude, sounds like a declaration of faith – I believe in myself – that tends to exaggerate how much your life is in your own hands. If nothing else, ordealing with cancer has taught me about the precariousness of life and the frailty of human experience.

I prefer to think we ought to strive for the quality of self-confidence, which is to be aware of your abilities, character traits, and virtues. To rely on your own judgment and decision-making, while also mindful of your strengths and weaknesses. In short, to know who you are, your potential as well as your limitations.

Finally, insofar as story is metaphor for life, what I encountered in the cancer community is something quite different than American “self-made” success stories. I learned that the ordeal is not only – or perhaps even primarily – about strength, courage, and resolve. Some of the most inspiring moments I associate with compassion, creativity, respect, kindness, openness, honesty, patience, persistence, affection, and trust. Character traits expressing some of the best of being human together.

That outlook has served me well while ordealing with cancer. Nevertheless, the bottom line, and I say this sincerely, is whatever works for you.

Cue Melodramatic Rocky Music (Skip Ad)

Footnotes

[1] In tune with my crucible metaphor, I find it helpful to turn ordeal (a noun) into an action verb to mean enduring a difficult or painful experience, or being subjected to a severe test or trial, or the act of going through something unpleasant or challenging.

Photo Credits (in order of appearance)

• Patriarca12, CC BY 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

• [Adrian gravestone] Dwkaminski, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

• Rosino, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

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.