Each person has their own experience when being treated for cancer. This is in essence what I wrote recently when mentioning that everyone’s journey with the disease is distinct. In recent weeks, stories of people living with cancer have reminded us how much this disease nevertheless requires organization, resilience and cooperation.
Kate Middleton’s video made public shows her alone, but her message exudes communitarianism. Through her personal story, she shows with dignity the expectations, hopes and concerns of anyone who has been diagnosed with cancer or who has been living with this disease for a longer or shorter time.
The loneliness faced by the diagnosis is first evident when we see her sitting on a bench, without support, although she emphasizes the words of encouragement received and the presence of her family. In illness, we remain isolated in our choices, confronted with our values, our obligations and above all with the harsh reality of conceiving tomorrow without certainty. His path, made public, is that of so many others who generally go unnoticed by the media, who are suddenly moved and tearful in front of the contained drama presented by a member of the royal family.
I am in no way reducing the stories of King Charles III and Princess Kate. On the contrary, the decision to partially make their state of health public is a unique moment to talk about the daily lives of so many people. Realizing that not everyone is lucky enough to have an environment of privilege will soften the journey somewhat.
This journey is intended to be long, in fact. Symptoms, biopsy or surgical intervention, preliminary diagnosis, confirmation and assessment of the extent of the disease, discussion of the issues and therapy options. At each stage, time, delays, suffering inherent to the illness or the treatments administered.
A community work
Since the establishment of public health services, the population has increasingly relieved itself of its responsibilities towards sick people, relegating this role to the State. Successive governments have not changed this perception much, often presenting themselves as providing answers to all the ills of the health system. These two observations take us away from a very different reality, that taking care of people with cancer is a community effort. To use an expression often devoted to education, “it takes a village “.
From caregivers to volunteers, who can help both physically and morally, to healthcare personnel who do more than administer care, and to foundations that recognize gaps in resources for care and research and are doing their best to to capitalize on them, all these actions are essential to the experience allowing the best outcome following a cancer diagnosis.
And to go further, it’s almost better that the exact nature of the royal family members’ cancer types hasn’t been revealed. This allows us to observe that cancers are among the leading causes of death in the world, that research initiatives and an organization of care are essential not only for breast cancer and pediatric cancers which we often hear the most about, but for all cancers that reduce the quantity of life and the quality of life.
Mme Middleton will also note, like the majority of patients, that the greatest support will come from people who experience events similar to his, from other patients able to put into perspective the repercussions of this illness on their lives and those of their loved ones. relatives. Beyond her feelings as a mother, she will learn from others words that have worked or changed the situation to explain the illness to children without unduly reassuring.
The community of patients therefore also makes up for what the health system cannot provide. Discussions in treatment rooms or waiting rooms certainly offer pearls of wisdom which have their value in the present moment, whose meaning differs in relation to the specific evolution of one’s illness.
The human component
While wars and conflicts rage, taking lives for truly human interests, nature also rages more insidiously with the potential to undermine minds and hopes of easy, peaceful happiness. Let us remember tomorrow the excitement caused by Kate Middleton’s announcements because of a nature that changed her life so quickly.
Let’s try to maintain the same emotion when less visible people are also diagnosed with cancer or its recurrence. Let us renew our community duty, often relegated or neglected after repeated information in the media which speaks more of human failings than of its social and scientific achievements, its generosity and its greatness of soul.
Medicine is certainly not able to offer prolonged survival to everyone. It is part of this very unique community work of caring for those who are weaker and in need, temporarily or more permanently. Just as doctors cannot do everything or promise cures, the same is true of the State, which must rely on its citizens to provide a wider range of services to cancer patients. Of course, there are other ailments besides cancer, but the number one cause of death and probably concern deserves more concerted effort.
Jean-Pierre Ferland left us a tasty expression: “we are lucky”. In fact, it is not an opportunity, but a necessity. In the United States, cancer centers are called Comprehensive Cancer Centers. Complete, integrative, holistic. Include all necessary components to be treated. In oncology, it is science that provides the basis and will increasingly include artificial intelligence to further specify how to treat patients. It is only necessary that technology does not replace the human component, which makes decisions focused on objectives of increasing survival. There will always be a large part of oncology care linked to quality of life or palliation that artificial intelligence will not be able to probe like a human can.
Pierre Rabhi, who, in my opinion, drew his wisdom from his condition as a farmer, said: “True power is in the capacity of a human community to be content with little, but to produce joy. » Without disagreeing, I still believe that the community has more ambition than that and wants to combine joy and a more satisfying and long life, despite cancer. Let’s prove it every day by supporting the thousands of patients who do not want to be recognized as cancer patients, but as citizens who have first names like Kate and Charles.