What does “stronger than chemicals” mean?

During a security conference, certainly one of my colleagues, an oncology nurse and breast cancer survivor, spoke truthfully about how cancer felt. “Every day you are afraid. Will the treatment or the cancer kill me?” she said. – You give it some thought on a regular basis. Her words struck me due to how open and exposed they were. There was nothing polished or inspiring about them. Just honesty.

For oncology nurses, a day at work can appear to be just one other day within the clinic, one other injection, one other patient project. But patients enter the identical space, bringing with them a totally different reality. Fear. Sadness. Uncertainty. Hope. Devastating news. Relief. Sometimes all the pieces directly. Her words jogged my memory how essential it’s to respect and remember this difference.

I remember walking into the patient’s room smiling from ear to ear. She asked me why I used to be so pleased. Without considering, I replied, “It’s a good day.” Looking back, this response seems insensitive. I later came upon that she had been told earlier that day that her cancer had metastasized. Not long after I left the room, I heard her sobbing behind the scenes. This moment stuck with me because what I believed was just an abnormal good day was certainly one of the worst of her life.

Other moments in oncology are different. One patient’s infusion pump went off an alarm while the nurse was busy, so I stepped in to assist. Before I took her blood pressure, she told me I could not use certainly one of her arms because she had a mastectomy. Then she smiled and said, “When I go for a mammogram, I tell them I should only pay half the price.” We laughed together.

I often do not know what “space” I’m entering. This uncertainty is a component of oncology. As nurses, we enter rooms where people could also be processing fear, anger, hope, exhaustion, denial, gratitude, humor, sadness, or devastating news. Some patients wish to talk. Others want silence. Some people wish to laugh. Others are barely hanging on.

As an oncology nurse, I can sympathize with patients battling cancer, but I cannot fully empathize with their situation. I even have never had cancer. I didn’t live with the knowledge that the disease or treatment itself could take my life. I feel this distinction matters.

However, over time, oncology has modified the best way I understand strength. People sometimes assume that “Stronger than Chemistry” means toughness. Fight harder. Stay positive. Continue your treatment without fear. This term has never had that much meaning for me.

For me, “chemotherapy” represents the broader experience of cancer: the fear, mortality, uncertainty, treatment, care, exhaustion, sadness, survival, and all of the changes that occur in life after a diagnosis. And “stronger” doesn’t suggest fearless.

In oncology, the force often looks much quieter than people expect. He looks like a patient arriving for treatment exhausted and nauseous, yet asking how one other patient is doing. It seems that caregivers are carrying an enormous emotional burden while attempting to create a way of normalcy at home. It’s as if patients were showing kindness to nurses and staff on days once they were scared themselves. It seems that individuals still love and look after others, while living in deep uncertainty themselves.

Cancer exposes how uncomfortable life is when mortality isn’t any longer abstract. Most individuals are in a position to move through on a regular basis life without always excited about death. Cancer often removes this distance.

Some people come out of this experience with a deeper appreciation for all times, relationships, or abnormal moments. Others do all the pieces they will to survive physically and emotionally. I do not think suffering must be transformative to merit compassion. I also don’t think there may be a right method to survive cancer.

Over time, working in oncology also modified me. I even have met people in essentially the most difficult moments of their lives who proceed to display generosity, humor, patience, compassion and concern for others. These moments stick with you. They remind us what humans are able to.

“Stronger Than Chemo” isn’t about remaining untouched by cancer. It’s not about pretending fear doesn’t exist. To me because of this even within the midst of fear, uncertainty, exhaustion, grief and alter, people still love, care, connect, hope and show themselves to one another.

This is the strength I see on daily basis in oncology.

Courtney Desy, BSN, RN, OCNis an oncology infusion nurse. He cares for adults undergoing chemotherapy and immunotherapy. She is the founding father of the Foundation Stronger than Chemistry FoundationA nonprofit organization focused on improving patient education and support during cancer treatment. Her last post on AJN Off the Charts was: “Helping patients live in a changing reality.”