A roller coaster week - a Friday to reflect

The story dominating the news this week was the sudden death of Jack Layton, only a month after telling the nation he was taking a break from his job because his cancer was back. The news stories were mostly about Jack's political career and his role in the amazing surge of the NDP in the last election. There was lots of talk of Jack's very personable and genuine approach to politics and life in general.

Jack Layton's death put cancer in the spot light once again and it got covered from a variety of angles. One interesting article that appeared in Tuesday's Globe & Mail was about the very militaristic language used to describe cancer. It's something we have discussed informally at the Cancer Foundation's Cancer Survivorship Care Centre as we prepare to open our doors to cancer survivors in the late fall. Some would argue we are sugar coating the cancer journey by wishing to tone down or remove military references, but our conversation is about finding the best approach to describe what is often a messy and complex disease.

Carly Weeks' Globe & Mail article made us reflect even further on the way we talk about cancer and the article suggests that perhaps there are better ways to talk about the cancer journey. The article goes on to say that perhaps it's more important to focus on learning to live with cancer because that idea is much more empowering then setting up a battle scenario where there is a winner and a loser.

Cancer Foundation staff got together for a half day retreat on August 25 to talk about the type of experience we want to create for people who will participate in our programs and workshops. It was an afternoon of useful often emotional discussion that helped us all define what our Cancer Survivorship Centre was all about. We spent a lot of time talking about the language we use to describe what we do and what our interactions with our guests would look like. We did not come up with all the answers, but we were unified in our desire to create an empowering experience in a friendly and welcoming environment.

It's a conversation that continues to evolve.