Dear Sappho,
I was recently diagnosed with Stage IV breast cancer mets to my bones. I was surprised to find out that telling people I have cancer is worse that telling people I am a lesbian. It’s almost like I told them I have leprosy. I am doing well and expect to live a long time with treatment options and sheer determination. My friends and coworkers don’t want to hear that I am ill. One suggested I keep such information to myself. Not that I’m looking for sympathy, and I do appear to be healthy and normal. But I am still in a bit of disbelief that having cancer is now less acceptable than being gay. Is this good or bad news for the lesbian community at large?
Cancer is Worse than Being Gay
Dear Cancer is Worse than Being Gay,
ReplyDeleteAlthough I am not pleased to hear that you have cancer, I am kind of, sort of pleased to hear that telling people you have cancer is worse than telling people that you are a lesbian. Please note that those of us from Lesbos have never felt that being Lesbian was bad in any way. That’s a connotation that has been deliberately fostered by homophobic fears that gay & lesbian people are sexually contagious. However neither cancer nor homosexuality is contagious.
The word lesbian triggers strong reactions from some people. I’ve had several lesbians tell me they could not or would not be associated with the word lesbian. I admit I may have rolled my eyes before they could finish telling me why the word evoked such strong reactions in them.
I’ll never understand how being gay could be considered bad news, but I do understand how having Stage IV cancer is bad news. It scares your friends and forces them to comment or acknowledge that bad things can happen to good people. You know the drill, smile and the world smiles with you, cry and you cry alone. No one wants to hear bad news. Living is the best revenge. Living well may provoke the very cure you are seeking.
However, cancer is not the death sentence it used to be. Medical advances have changed the prognosis from being a terminally ill disease to a chronic illness that can be managed. There is much healing and recovery from cancer at this time and if you can visualize and believe it, you can be, and live it.
My hope is that you will handle your cancer with as much ferocious passionate joy as you have your gaiety. They are both life transforming in the way they bring change and sacred gifts that make us realize how love and in cancer's case, illness, forces us to see what is most important and dear. My prayer is that you will completely cure yourself and become another wise woman, shaman, working to heal us all.
Health and Wellness
Sappho