【TIME】Why I Stopped Being A “Good” Cancer Patient

chemotherapy

意味　[U] （特に癌に対する） 化学療法.

“You are allergic to your oral chemotherapy,” explains my oncology team at a recent appointment. “We are going to try a newer drug,” I am on my fourth attempt to find an oral treatment suitable for both my body and my cancer, so that I can maintain a remission that took three years and a stem cell transplant to achieve. “We want to get ahead of it before it gets ahead of us.” In my headphones, Weezer achingly croons, “Say it ain’t so, your drug is a heartbreaker.”

https://time.com/6691886/cancer-patient-impossible-standards-essay/

発音は「 /kìːmoʊθérəpi, kèm-/ 」
アレルギーがあるのはきついな…。

gaping

意味　[通例[名]の前で]大きく [ぽっかりと] 開いた〈穴など〉.

Three years after a transplant, I am still here, four failed oral chemotherapies later, standing before the gaping mouth of a familiar hell, being handed yet another drug, so “all the good work” of the last six years will not go undone. No one treating me considers what it means to actually live through all this. It is easy to prescribe a drug because the enemy is always cancer. In their eyes, if I say “no” to treatment, I am saying “yes” to dying; I am saying “yes” to the enemy in my blood.

https://time.com/6691886/cancer-patient-impossible-standards-essay/

つらいな、私はこんなにがんばれないわ…模範的患者にもなれない。

dignified

意味　〈人· 態度などが〉威厳のある; 堂々とした; 品位のある

I admit surviving cancer has not been a dignified process.

https://time.com/6691886/cancer-patient-impossible-standards-essay/

render

意味　[～ A C]〈事· 物が〉A〈人· 物〉を C〈状態〉にする (make) （C はしばしば-less, in-など否定的意味を伴うもの）

Illness does not render me invalid or worthless, nor should I be denied understanding and self-determination. I refuse to live up to standards where I must barter all my self-regard for the bare minimum. I can no longer force myself to overlook larger systems playing critical roles in intentionally failing, neglecting, and impacting our health and our communities.

https://time.com/6691886/cancer-patient-impossible-standards-essay/

cautionary

意味　[通例[名]の前で]警告を与える, 注意を促す〈言葉· 話など〉.

I am a cautionary tale, if you will, but being a cautionary tale does not make me a lost cause. I did not just believe myself to be a star, like Icarus; I am one, and fatigued, asking neighboring constellations for a burst of light. If I do fail, then I fail, but know that none of it is failure to me. It is not a war waged against me; I did not beckon some wake of vultures: cancer is an illness, and my body is just a body. There is no meaning. There is no metaphor.

https://time.com/6691886/cancer-patient-impossible-standards-essay/

一人だし残すものもないから、大病しても治療したくないんだけど、実際に診断されたら怖くなって縋るんだろうなぁとも思ってる。とりあえず全部自分で判断できるよう、脳は健康でありたい。