Cheth.com

Sound of Cancer.

Just One Word

“It’s incurable.” The word reverberates, a crescendoing echo refusing to die, repeatedly revoking my faint hope. And not only am I going to die—I’m going to die faithless, my lifelong trust in the infinite ability of man irreparably shattered. How can there not be a cure?

The reader recoils. Another sad cancer story? Should one feel guilty for not being sick? Amongst the prejudices modernity instills is our questionable rush to deny mortality and sickness, and, perhaps because the afflicted remind us of our frailty, to walk away. We must change that response to the sound of the word cancer. Overcome your fear! Read on.

It wasn’t the first horrifying pronouncement. The initial, “You’ve got cancer,” blurted out moments after Magnetic Resonance Imaging—before I could even grab my shoes—cast a nightime curse upon me, a profane hex I will always revile (“always” now shortened). Just takes one word. Consider: “Resonance.” Really? To me resonance evokes mellifluously exquisite cathedral choirs, or the far side of the Moon, tidally locked away in permanent invisibility. In reality an MRI “resonates” like angry, dueling jack-hammers. Their impressively plush headphones with “whatever you like” for music proved wholly inadequate; its resonance obliterated Jimi Hendrix.

That initial bombshell exploded while I stood on the control room floor. I sometimes think I would have preferred something softer, more along the lines of, “I think you should sit down,” perhaps delivered by my own doctor. Well, makes no difference. Result’s the same. Yet even that “welcome” into the world of the diagnosed, though unquestionably terrifying and traumatic, was not nearly as daunting as “incurable.” OK, I have cancer. So I get treated; I get cured. Western Medicine to the rescue, happens all the time. But incurable? Where was science?

—Monday, May 14, 2018

. . .

PS: My stage IV prostate cancer is officially in remission! Eight years and counting! A lovely change of sound.

—September One, 2026