"Unfortunately, there is a cancer."

I had been replaced by it,

But I could tell from a few hours of investigation that the career of a breast cancer patient had been pretty well mapped out in advance: you may get to negotiate the choice between lumpectomy and mastectomy, but lumpectomy is commonly followed by weeks of radiation, and in either case if the lymph nodes turn out, upon dissection, to be invaded – or "involved," as it's less threateningly put – you're doomed to months of chemotherapy, an intervention that is on a par with using a sledge hammer to swat mosquitoes.

my cancer career unfolded

the helpful pamphlets explained, become a composite of the living and the dead

it's the biggest disease on the cultural map

hundreds of websites devoted to it, not to mention newsletters, support groups and a whole genre of first-person breast cancer books.

not everyone views the disease with horror and dread. Instead, the appropriate attitude is upbeat and even eagerly acquisitive.

a striking resemblance to a shopping centre.

There is no doubt, though, that all the prettiness and pinkness is meant to inspire a positive outlook

with an upbeat message for the terrified neophyte.

panicky fascination about everything that can go wrong – septicemia, ruptured implants, startling recurrences a few years after the completion of treatments, "mets" (metastases) to vital organs, and – what scared me most in the short term – "chemobrain" or the cognitive deterioration that sometimes accompanies chemotherapy.

my sense of isolation grew. No one among the bloggers and book writers seemed to share my sense of outrage

The Breast Friends website, for example, features a series of inspirational quotes: "Don't cry over anything that can't cry over you"; "When life hands out lemons, squeeze out a smile";

"patient" and "victim," with their aura of self-pity and passivity, have been ruled un-PC. I

one achieves the status of "survivor"

cheerfulness of breast cancer culture goes beyond mere absence of anger to what looks, all too often, like a positive embrace of the disease

New York Times health columnist Jane Brody quoted bike racer and testicular cancer survivor Lance Armstrong, who said, "Cancer was the best thing that ever happened to me",

most extreme characterisation, breast cancer is not a problem at all, not even an annoyance – it is a "gift", deserving of the most heartfelt gratitude.

"Cancer will lead you to God. Let me say that again. Cancer is your connection to the Divine."

Breast cancer is a chance for creative self-transformation – a makeover opportunity, in fact.

As an experiment

in anger and bitterness is such a waste..."Exhortations to think positively – to see the glass half full, even when it lies shattered on the floor – are not restricted to the pink ribbon culture.

ventured out into another realm of personal calamity – the world of laid-off white-collar workers. At the networking groups, boot camps and motivational sessions available to the unemployed, I found unanimous advice to abjure anger and "negativity" in favour of an upbeat, even grateful approach to one's immediate crisis.

by being positive, a person might not only feel better during his or her job search, but actually bring it to a faster, happier conclusion.

there is no kind of problem or obstacle for which positive thinking or a positive attitude has not been proposed as a cure.

The real obstacle lies in your mind.

A Google search for "positive thinking" turns up 1.92m entries.

there was, I learned, an urgent medical reason to embrace cancer with a smile: a "positive attitude" is supposedly essential to recovery

A recent e-zine article

The link between the immune system, cancer, and the emotions was cobbled together somewhat imaginatively in the 70s.

the theory's appeal.

But Coyne and his coauthors found the existing literature full of "endemic problems".

could be argued that positive thinking can't hurt,

the sugar-coating of cancer can exact a dreadful cos

it takes effort to maintain the upbeat demeanor

Consider the woman who wrote to Deepak Chopra that her breast cancer had spread to the bone

others in the cancer care business have begun to speak out against what one has called "the tyranny of positive thinking"

a 2004 study found no survival benefits for optimism among lung cancer patients, its lead author, Penelope Schofield, wrote:

without question there is a problem when positive thinking "fails" and the cancer spreads or eludes treatment. Then the patient can only blame herself: she is not being positive enough; possibly it was her negative attitude that brought on the disease in the first place.

my cancer was iatrogenic, that is, caused by the medical profession. When I was diagnosed, I had been taking hormone replacement therapy for almost eight years, prescribed by doctors who avowed it would prevent heart disease, dementia, and bone loss.

So bad science may have produced the cancer in the first place, just as the bad science of positive thinking plagued me throughout my illness.

this a "gift", was a very personal, agonising encounter with an ideological force in American culture that I had not been aware of before – one that encourages us to deny reality, submit cheerfully to misfortune and blame only ourselves for our fate.

routine mammogram aroused

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