Cancer Journal by Bill Gardner
Bill Gardner is a psychologist, mental health services researcher, and former member of the Center for Bioethics & Health Law. He is now a professor in the School of Epidemiology and Public Health at the University of Ottawa. When he was diagnosed with cancer during the current pandemic, he decided to write about his experience. Cancer Journal addresses a range of bioethics-relevant questions about COVID, cancer, “health,” the Canadian healthcare system, and medical decision-making.
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“I have serious news.” My day and night in the Emergency Department on July 2nd and 3rd, 2020; in which I was first diagnosed with cancer. |
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Playing for real money. In which I meet my tumour. I explain what kind of cancer I have, what likely caused it, and why having everyone vaccinated against the human papillomavirus matters, even for men. |
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Treating cancer — So many decisions. There are difficult choices for treating cancer. Here’s how I made them. |
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Not-so-shared cancer decision-making. How is treatment supposed to work when you can’t communicate with the Cancer Centre? |
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Radiation Therapy for Cancer — What’s It Like? For one thing, they put you into a machine. Wearing a mask. |
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Radiation therapy for cancer: Two weeks left. On what it’s like to be a cook who loses the ability to taste. |
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Radiation therapy for cancer: DONE I’m through. With a health intervention from my dog. |
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Fighting Cancer and Fighting COVID-19. Why I don’t ‘fight’ cancer. |
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Hallway Medicine. I travel by ambulance to an Emergency Department and get treated in the hallway. Why that happens in Ontario. |
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“So, how do you feel about having cancer during COVID?” The emotional cost of cancer. |
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WTF, I have a lung tumour? In which I get to read the results of my CT scan online, before my doctor sees them. |
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What is health? It’s not clear what ‘health’ means, but you need to get clear about it to make a good decision about your care. |
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The PET Scan. I have another test to check whether radiation killed my tumour. And it suggests that the tumour is still there. |
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How to Live with Cancer. Getting through with a good marriage, a good dog, and Peloton. |
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Ontario on the Edge. How the pandemic is threatening our provincial health care system. |
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SHATTERED. I get the results of a biopsy. My cancer is back and my prognosis is bad. |
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Hard Conversations and Deep Attention. How do you have a conversation about dying? |
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Immunotherapy. My search for a new treatment strategy. |
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Citizenship in the Kingdom of Malady. Cancer as a personally transformative experience. |
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The Combined Positive Score. Finally, some good news: I might be the kind of person for whom immunotherapy works. |
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The Sad Thing About Good News. Good news about my treatment. But in cancer, even good news can pose a challenge. |
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A Soldier of the Great War. A cancer memoir, like this one, tells a life story. So how does cancer figure in mine? |
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Thanksgiving. A long road trip, searching for treatment. |
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To Hope or Not to Hope. In the liminal world between life and death. |
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The COVID Pandemic on New Year’s Day, 2022. The US has experienced 3.1 deaths/million than Canada. Why? |
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Not to Hope. I am on leave from death, and grateful for it. |
| An Owl Among the Ruins. Desert air is clear, and cancer can give life an austere beauty. |
| Pain. Even when it's not at the forefront of your thoughts, it occupies a fraction of your mind. |
| Why does anyone get cancer? My tumor cells descend from a lineage originating from a cell in the tissue that lines my throat. |
| Medical Assistance in Dying. Real-life generates cases that confound attempts to draw absolute lines. |
| The Morning Before an Oncology Appointment. People say, "there's only the present moment," but I disagree. |
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Just this day. We have only so many days to spend. A terminal diagnosis makes that tangible. |
| Cancer and the Fog of War. Sometimes uncertainty works to my benefit. |
| Cancer in Advent. I had gotten evidence that my cancer had recurred, for the second time. |
| Is the median the message? How should one respond to a terminal prognosis? |
| Learn to Meditate. Practical advice for those newly diagnosed with cancer. |
| Black on Grey. Falling down the gravity well of a black hole. |
| More Black on Grey. I'm the dead man walking. |
| In the Chemotherapy Suite. The Buddhist meditation practice of tonglen. |
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How to Talk to a Cancer Patient. Love entails attention to one another. |
| Escape. Understanding the light doesn't matter; simply knowing it's there does. |
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When My Doctor Offered to Help Me Take My Life. Why the increase of MAID in Canada is a crisis. |
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In Sickness and in Health. It isn't plans that hold us together. |
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Above the Treeline. Mortality is an immense, harsh truth. |
| Rejection and Purpose. As the US Marines say, "FIDO." |
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Medical Assistance in Dying in Canada. Concerns that some patients will choose MAID because they simply cannot get adequate mental health or palliative care. |
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My Health TODAY. Why I now make the best scrambled eggs in North America. |
| Pain Management. The soft tissues of the mouth and throat are richly endowed with pain receptors. |
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MAID and the Health Care Cost Crisis. The data's implications are dire. |
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A turn for the worse. Increasing throat pain, coughing, and swelling of my mouth and tongue. |
| Happiness. Recovering from crisis. |
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Good Care for Cancer Patients. How does one care for the body? |
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Why do elites want MAID? Why so many secular elites are intensely committed to the right to assisted suicide. |
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Finitude. Acknowledging death comes in stages. |
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Introduction to a Series on Suffering. Teachings on suffering from three traditions: the Stoics, the Buddhists, and the Christians. |
| Awareness of the Presence of God. As St. Augustine said, “[He is] closer to me than I am to myself.” |
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Stoicism and Suffering. On the writings of Marcus Aurelius. |
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Take Care of Your Caregiver. There is a technique for gratitude. |
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Suffering and Buddhism. One's suffering rests on illusions. |
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Gender and Caring for Others. Kate Manne's thoughts on caregiving. |
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Suffering: Christianity. How Christianity differs from Stoicism and Buddhism in this respect. |
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Suffering: Palliative Care. How palliative care might help you suffer less. |
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Exemplary Lives. The lives, illnesses, and deaths of extraordinary writers. |
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Exemplary Lives: Christopher Hitchens. Author, journalist, and social critic. |
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What Have I Done? Developing a scientific approach to mental health care. |
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Exemplary Lives: Susan Sontag. On her willingness to suffer in the face of extinction. |
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Exemplary Lives: Pedro Arrupe. The man who ran toward the fire. |
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Why Write About Cancer? Understanding the world into which cancer has thrown me. |
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Death and Taxes. Being free of the desire to punish. |
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Canadian Thanksgiving. On accepting my dependent need for care. |
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The Story So Far. A path for reading my journey from the beginning. |
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When Should a Doctor Speak to a Patient about MAID? Doctors should not deliver bad news and discuss MAID in the same meeting. |
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Exemplary Lives: Rob Gardner. A relentless determination to stand upright in the world. |
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Thinking—or not—about my death. Are we supposed to have Big Feelings about dying? |
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Why Is It Hard to Receive Care? On being shamed about dependence. |
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Should I be writing a memoir? On attempting to express the inexpressible. |
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Christmas Blues. Finding what I wanted at Christmas improved my life. |
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Seeing My Tumour. On encountering a tocsin of death. |
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Data on MAID in Canada: 2022. On the 31% increase from 2021. |
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On being a patient and becoming dependent. Gratitude seems like a small virtue; how could it matter? |
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Suffering and Joy. Virginia Woolf's writings about illness. |
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Trust and Care in Medicine. What do trust and care mean? |
| Maeve. On testing one's character. |
| Why does anyone get cancer? The price of multicellularity. |
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Expensive Healthcare. What is the point of public health insurance? |
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Cancer, Memoir, and Art. On becoming a memoirist. |