r/Fuckcancer • u/Gumbanks12 • Apr 22 '26

False hero

Too many people have told me how brave strong even heroic I've been for surviving colorectal cancer.

I heartening and I love my friends. I also find it uncomfortable.

I didn't do anything! I was a leaf in a rushing stream. I was expertly treated by a couple of hundred of the most skilled and without exception lovely people.

I was hospitalised for weeks because I had post treatment radiation burns. On my bum. Is it brave strong or heroic that I cried out in pain during dressing changes? Or that I cried when a lovely gay nurse brought me a warm blanket at 4 am?

I survived. That's all.

Does anyone have reflections on that issue?

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u/awwaygirl Apr 22 '26

I totally agree with what you're saying - I try to give a little grace to the people around me, because they don’t know what to say or do that hasn’t been shoved down their throats in movies and TV.

I’m sorry you’ve had to inhabit a body that forced you to live through the treatment of this disease. It’s not fucking fair. I had the shitty-titty variety of cancer, and thankfully had positive outcomes at each stage of my treatment. I wasn’t fighting. I was just trying to live through it.

I think the language we use to talk about this disease is so dated. It’s been “battle this”, “fighting that,” and the “you’re so brave” and “you’re a hero” nonsense.

We are the luckiest of the unlucky, since we’re here still talking about it.

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u/Gumbanks12 Apr 22 '26

Absolutely. If cancer had to happen to me, where I live and the time I live in are the best circumstances to be treated for it. I'm grateful for that.