The Cancer Card

This may not sit well with some of you who read this regularly.

The latest note on the Penn State mess is that Joe Paterno is "battling cancer." Sorry, Joe, but don't expect that to work for you. Men don't get sympathy when they play the cancer card. Doesn't happen.

In 2010 a little over 32,000 men died from prostate cancer, while there were over 217,000 new cases. A comparable statistic for breast cancer in women in 2007 was 40,000 deaths and 178,000 new cases. Not incomparable numbers. But here's the rub.

It seems to me that a lot more attention is paid to the latter. Yes, I know there are some issues about the level of social investment in women's health care and that some of that gets caught up on the ideological battles about Roe v. Wade. But there is no "Race for the Cure' for prostate cancer, no "wear pink for the cure." And operationally, experientially, I have seen where one gender gets to play the card but the other does not.

A group I was in was doing a radical reorganization and some jobs were going to be lost. There were say about a dozen or so women in the group and three men. All of the women were found jobs that they did not have to compete for, and much was made of "poor So-and-So," who had recently been diagnosed with breast cancer and how something had to be found for her. One of the men, an African-American, was given a brand new "diversity" job which he left as soon as he found something else (can you spell "let's avoid a law suit?"), and the other two were left to scramble. I suppose it could be written down to "turn about is fair play" given the ways women have been treated in the workplace in the past and even today, but it seemed pretty off to me at the time. Still does.

A few years later after my own diagnosis of cancer and just as I was beginning treatment, I was laid off. I never brought it up. First, I knew it would make no difference in the instance, but I also knew that men don't get to play the cancer card.

All that said, I should say that I don't think anyone should. Many things can kill us. Many diseases can give us a death sentence, but then so can life itself ultimately. Yes, people deserve sympathy and care and support when they face that risk. But one form of disease is no more deserving of that attention than another, and frankly I'm getting a little tired of the way one does.

I don't know how helpful it is that we demonize cancer anyway. It's your own cells gone haywire and I'll bet it turns out that the aging of tissue has a lot to do with it. I don't think it will ever be completely eradicated, just as (thankfully) I don't think we will ever extend life indefinitely. Doesn't mean we shouldn't fight for our well-being. Just let's not make one life-threatening disease a poster child while ignoring others simply because of the groups they affect.

I'm a cancer survivor now--almost 8 years--but I don't think it should really be a big deal. My treatment has had some impact on my lifestyle, but I'm not 40 or 25 or 17 anymore either. It is what it is. That's all.