Fain 1

Tyler Fain
11/19/14
UWRIT 1102-018
Genre Piece
Cancer Identity
After doing research and reading many different pieces such as articles, interviews, and
overview of books of people with cancer and their relationships with people that were going
through or helping them fight through the process of chemo radiation therapy and everything else
that came along with it. Surprisingly, to me it seemed that everyone had the same experience and
felt the same with their relationships with family and friends. They all talked about how the
support from friends and family gave them that extra push to fight through the pain and struggles
of cancer. They also explain how the feeling of having those relationships were like having a net
to fall into when they were feeling depressed and down on themselves. Cancer is a deadly
disease and there are many different kinds and all of the have different effect on the body and all
have different ways to be treated. It can have such a huge impact on how it changes you
physically, such and tremendous amounts of weight loss and, emotionally, such as depression. It
also can have many effects on the people you love, even your family. It can make the best
relationships with people you love, such as family, friends, even spouses, the worst, and in some
cases it can even take those relationships and tear them apart, to the point where they can and
will never be fixed.

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In all the pieces that I explored or read through all of them had something to say about
chemo radiation therapy. Chemo radiation therapy is just as it sounds, it uses a specific type of
radiation to kill off the cancer, but it has side effects and some are worse than others. Radiation
therapy causes so many problems internally and externally on the body. Internally it can cause
brain, spinal cord, nerve problems, emotional difficulties, digestion problems, and even
secondary cancer after the first one is gone. Some physical side effects are hair loss, radiation kill
or makes you hair seem like it has a dead dry look, you can lose large amounts a weight, and you
can become weak as if it becomes hard to support your own body weight for long periods of
time, such as standing, walking, or even small amounts of physical activities.
It seems that every piece, like an article, short biography, or an interview, the person that
has cancer, mentions how important or impacting that the relationships that they have with their
loved ones, children, parents, or even spouse, or their friends played such an important role in
helping them fight through the process, just like Hoda Kotb in her story. As you read her story
she talks about her process with cancer but once you read further toward the end she will
continue to talk about how important her kids were to her and their love and support helped her
and gave her encouragement to have that extra push. Hota Kotb went through a lot, she was
diagnosed with breast cancer and then went through a divorce, but her children never left her
side. She does nothing but thank her children in her story, as stated, I think of my children every
day, my love for them is unbreakable. Even though my husband and I split up after I became sick
and my body started to change my children never left my side, and I will forever be grateful for

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that. Also she talks about how the cancer tore apart her marriage but in the other hand it made
her childrens and her relationship stronger. The point of her story is that no matter how much
you change or it changes you, you will have people in your life who will love you for who you
are no matter what the situation is
On the other hand, in rare cases, some people refuse to accept the radiation therapy just
like a brave women named, Sean Patrick. Sean Patrick was am average women who didnt really
associate with other people and kept to herself, until the summer of 1997. She was diagnose with
a rare type of Ovarian Cancer, stage Illc (specific name is not listed). So after finding out this
horrible news she went and did some research for herself. After weeks of constant testing and
researching she found that the type of cancer she has, chemotherapy has very little affect or none
at all. After reading all of this discouraging information about her disease she decides to take
matters into her own hands which was strongly looked down upon. Sean also did the
unthinkable, firing many different doctors until she found one she was comfortable with then she
enrolled in a clinical trial and all it is, is basically a research study of that prospectively assigns
human participants or groups of humans to one or more health-related interventions to evaluate
the effects on health outcomes. So it contributed no help to get rid of this disease. While all of
this is going on Sean Patrick continues her research over months process and sees that the same
type of cancer is becoming more common in women of young ages such as 14 and even in the
elderly. Seeing these results and reading articles of many of these peoples stories she decides to
set aside her personal problems and begins to think about other people. She didnt just continue
fighting her disease, she was helping other women fight theirs too. She decides to help other
people fight by raising funds and awareness through her creation of the HERA (Health,

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Empowerment, Research, and Advocacy) Foundation and Ovarian Cancer Climb for Life. Which
is a rock climbing event for ovarian cancer research. All of this leads to the change of herself but
even more important, a change in her identity in other peoples eyes. She became almost an idol
to other women who has this type of cancer. They say it is an indescribable feeling when youre
going through something such has having cancer and to know that if things go wrong you have a
security blank or a cushion to fall back on. She changed the way women and most doctors look
at this cancer.
After conducting all of this research and reading everyones story or interviews, everyone
seems to talk about or mention on how they, their identity change, have changed is other
peoples eyes. Well I have my own personal experience with this, so I have a small
understanding where these people are coming from. My mom, Amy, was diagnosed with ovarian
cancer when I was in elementary school and I know that little kids at that age dont really know
whats going on but when something like that happens and my mom walks into the house crying,
there is an obligated feeling for her son to ask, whats wrong with mommy? After all of this
things continued to get worse before they got better. After a few months of mom being sick the
stress of financial issues, her being sick, and the constant arguing between her an my step-father,
Tommy, they decided to get a divorce. This took such a toll on me because my real father was
never there and to finally have a father figure like Tommy to come in and immediately start
loving and caring for me and my brother, TJ, and my sister, Cathleen, its awesome. I cant think
of any other word to describe it. After him and my mom split up there was something in me, I
didnt know what it was and still dont, that changed and all of a sudden I knew that I was the

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only man left in the house and somehow and some way it now is my job to help take care
of my mom and my younger siblings till help came.
Just like all of these people and having to read their stories, interviews and their small
biographies they all explain how their life was before cancer and after having cancer. They talk
about how much it changes them and how other people look at them. How hard it is to do
anything because their bodies are so weak and that it is almost like a worthless feeling. Just as
Hoda Kotb has explained in her article, I had crawled into a ball because of the
depression.(Hoda Kotb page 1). As implied without direct saying, in all of these stories, cancer
has its own distinct was of changing a persons identity and who they are. Its a feeling that
people have when being diagnosed with a disease that there is that slight chance of dying and
when having that I couldnt imagine what it would do to you personally and how differently you
look at things such as family and friends.

Tyler Fain
11/19/14
UWRIT 1102-018
Work Cited
Works Cited

Germino, Barbara B., and Sandra G. Funk. Impact of a Parents Cancer on Adult
Children: Role And Relationship Issues. Simmons in Oncology Nursing 9.2
(1993): 101-06. Web.
Kotbn Hoda, and Jane Lorenzini. Hoda: How I Survived War Zones, Bad Hair, Cancer,
and Katle Lee. New York: Simon and Schusler, 2010. Print
Romm, Robin. The Mercy Papers: A Memoir of Three Weeks. New York Scriber, 2009. Print.
Yang, Mu. Interview with Ovarian Cancer Survivor and Patient Advocate Sean Patrick. Ovarian
Cancer: Johns Hopkins Pathology. 2014. Print.