Cancer vs. MS
I hate these types of stories. To set up, let’s look at the quote from Ann Romney about her battles with MS:
Ann Romney, who was diagnosed with the degenerative nerve disease in 1998, said in a recent interview with People magazine, “It wasn’t as though I was suicidal, but I was at the point where I thought, ‘Couldn’t I please just have cancer and die?’”
This admission has angered a Leroy Sievers who runs a blog at NPR started by his own battle with cancer.
I’m leaning towards “angry.” Most of you, patients and caregivers, already know everything that I’m about to say. You’ve learned it through experience. But for Mrs. Romney and others, here goes.
Cancer does not bring a quick death. Cancer is painful and debilitating. Cancer wreaks havoc on the life of anyone who has it, and the lives of the people who care about them. Cancer twists the present and steals the future. Cancer hurts. It hurts so badly that sometimes you can barely stand it. Cancer is not something to be sought after. Cancer is not the lesser of evils. Cancer is the Beast, the Monster, the Murderer. I know there are diseases out there that are crueler than Cancer. I know there are those whose burdens are heavier than ours. But cancer is not an easy way out.
If I might put on my armchair psychologist hat for a moment, I think Mr. Sievers is letting himself become too defined by cancer, to the point of looking too hard for slights that might belittle his own experiences. Obviously, Ann had no intention of stating that dying of cancer would be easy, only that a small part of her wished that her pain might have an ending.
When a person is as sick as Ann Romney was, is it any surprise that she might find the grass greener on the other side, even if that side be cancer? Is it really worth anyone’s anger to be miffed at a sick person for not treating your disease with what you think is the proper respect?
~~~Thomas
July 30th, 2007 at 11:12 pm
Leroy Sievers’ reaction is nothing short of wrong. His comparing the seriousness of cancer over MS is non sequitur. Ann Romney simply gave her response to her long fight with MS–it was her honest reaction to say “couldn’t I just have cancer and get it over with.” She wasn’t attempting a treastise of the “superiority of MS over cancer; just giving her honest reaction to her own suffering. Right or wrong, it makes little sense to argue about which is worse because her statement was about her reaction, not about which disease is worse. This is another case of missing the forest for the trees.