AFTER CANCER: THE SWORD OF DAMOCLES REVISITED: ESCAPING THE FEAR OF RECURRENCE – I
A tale recounted by the ancient Roman philosopher Cicero has much to teach the cancer survivor about living with fear and uncertainty. According to Cicero, Dionysius the Elder of Syracuse enjoyed enormous wealth and power, but lived in constant fear of assassination. His inability to trust anyone made him desperately lonely. One day a subject, Damocles, was praising with awe and jealousy all the wealth and luxuries enjoyed by Dionysius. Damocles declared, “All these wonderful things must certainly make you the happiest man alive.” Dionysius offered Damocles the opportunity to experience royal “happiness” himself.
Damocles was made comfortable on a golden couch, near an elaborate banquet of edible delicacies. Beautiful servants attended to his every wish. Damocles was enjoying himself immensely. Dionysius then ordered that a large, gleaming sword be suspended from the ceiling by a horsehair in such a way that the tip of the blade hovered inches above Damocles’ neck.
Damocles could no longer enjoy any of the surrounding luxuries. Eyes fixed on the sword at his neck, he was completely paralyzed by his perception of the looming threat. In the end, he begged to be released from his torturous “happiness” and allowed to return to his normal life.
Cicero’s message for us is that happiness is out of the question if you are perpetually menaced by some terror. Damocles could escape his terror by stepping out from under the sword. Unlike Damocles, you will not be freed by a change of locale. As a cancer survivor, you can escape your sword only by confronting the realities of your cancer and finding a proper place for it in your life.
What is that proper place? Can the cancer survivor ever really escape the terror of cancer? Many people believe that survivors must resign themselves to living forever with the fear of recurrence, illness, and death. Such resignation is not a useful or healthy way to confront life after cancer.
The fact is that many cancers are now curable or treatable, rendering the cancer survivor as healthy as someone who has never had cancer. For these survivors, the image of the dangling sword is simply not justified from a medical point of view. Yet too many of these healthy cancer survivors live the rest of their lives waiting for their recurrence. They never feel healthy, normal, or free of their cancer, no matter how many checkups or CAT scans indicate that they are. This feeling is often reinforced by friends and family who view the survivor as a doomed individual and who ask, “Any sign of a recurrence yet?” Such survivors are trapped under a sword of Damocles, and can never be truly happy or live a normal life.
Other survivors must live with cancer or with a high likelihood of recurrence. Yet happiness and fulfillment are still possible if they can only tame the terror.
What you must do in order to feel normal again is step out from under the sword and learn to perceive your life differently. Your fear of cancer is a state of mind. You cannot choose not to have cancer or a cancer history. But you can choose how you live with your cancer or cancer history. You can learn ways to focus on your present life and not your risk of recurrence or future illness.
You can diminish the fear, anxiety, and immobility that accompany the image of a dangling sword by mentally creating a distance so that the sword is but a dot in the landscape, or by mentally turning away so that the sword is but a vague shadow in your peripheral vision. Each of these mental exercises blunts or blocks the impact of your fear on your day-to-day experiences.
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