My first fentanyl

by Brian on March 9, 2025

in Cancer,Health,Science,Technology

I don’t remember when I fell asleep or when I woke up, but I was in another room. My wife, Jody, said that, when I started talking again, I would repeat the same stories, three, four, even five times in a row.

That’s what a little fentanyl will do for you.

Don’t worry, I didn’t surreptitiously buy some street-corner cocaine that turned out to be laced with fentanyl, nor was I hooked on counterfeit OxyContin or Vicodin that increasingly contains fentanyl at wildly inconsistent – and often deadly – doses.

After years of soaring OxyContin deaths, fentanyl has now surpassed Purdue Pharma’s highly-touted, once-presumed “non-addictive” pain medicine as the world’s deadliest opioid. Fentanyl itself is now responsible for close to 80,000 deaths a year in the U.S. alone. The drug is 10 to 20 times more potent than heroin, 50 times more powerful than oxycodone and 100 times stronger than morphine.

Fentanyl has long been used for pain reduction and sedation in medical settings; it was approved for use in the U.S. in 1968 and plays a critical role in post-surgery recovery and managing end-of-life cancer pain. Because it has such a short time-to-action peak (about five minutes), fentanyl is routinely used in obstetric epidurals. In the military, fentanyl lollipops are given to soldiers following an injury from an IED.

In 2017, fentanyl was the most widely used synthetic opioid in medicine in the U.S. 

Because fentanyl is so hardy, even very small amounts can create profound change – from feelings of bliss to fatal overdose. You can pack a lot of fentanyl into a tiny pill, which makes it easily smuggled. NBC News reports that drug cartels “made the business decision that an increase in deaths among their customers was a small price to pay for the profitability of using fentanyl in nearly every illegal drug.”

The musician Prince reportedly overdosed on fentanyl in 2016. Two years later, Tom Petty died from an accidental overdose that included fentanyl in its cocktail mix, as did Michael K. Williams, one of the stars of TV’s The Wire.

Fentanyl has become a left-right political hot potato, too, with Democrats perceived as being soft on prevention while President Donald Trump has taken a tougher line. The GOP national convention in July, for example, featured a speech from a mother who had lost a child to fentanyl. At the DNC, no prime-time speaker mentioned the opioid crisis.

Given all this background, when I saw fentanyl on the list of meds about to be injected into my arm, I was a tad alarmed. But I trusted my doctor who needed to put me under in order to perform a colonoscopy – my first in 13 years.

The colonoscopy’s timing was entirely coincidental and unrelated to my cancer diagnosis, although there is some evidence that Crohn’s disease, which I’ve had since I was 12 years old, is correlated with an increased risk of lymphoma, my personal cancer bugaboo.

Fentanyl – and the other two sedatives in the injection – dormicum and propofol – are a far cry from the first colonoscopy I had when I was pre-teen. In those days, the protocol was “semi-sedation.” The docs wanted you awake enough to tell them, “Ow, that hurts.” Then, at the end of the procedure, they’d give you an extra dose, and you would forget the whole thing.

For my first colonoscopy, the doctor told me afterward about the long and philosophical conversations we had while he was poking around. 

I couldn’t recall a thing,

Which got me wondering: If you feel pain but you don’t remember it, did you really feel the pain? 

The American Cancer Society recommends that everyone over the age of 50 get a little fentanyl every 10 years – that is, to perform a colonoscopy to rule out colon cancer – which, because it grows so slowly, is usually treatable if caught early. After age 70, most people can stop the scopes (even without an Ezekiel Emmanuel-style “declaration” that you’re ceasing all screening at 75) because it’s more likely that something else will kill them before any colon cancer does.

Colonoscopy is not without risk: Three out of every 1,000 colonoscopies result in some sort of problem, from excessive bleeding after a biopsy to a potentially deadly perforation of the intestinal wall. 

Because of the Crohn’s, my gastro doc wants me to come back for another colonoscopy in three years. I won’t be 70 yet; still, I’m not sure I’ll agree. 

If I do demur, I’ll be in the right country.

Israeli doctors argue it’s better to do a stool test every year instead of the more invasive procedure only once every decade.

American doctors say no way – colonoscopy is the only way to be sure. (My doctor moved to Israel from the U.S. several years ago, so he’s in favor of the latter approach.)

When I became aware I was about to receive fentanyl in my IV drip, I pointed it out to my gastro. 

“You should wake up very happy,” he quipped before I passed out.

I can’t tell you if I was fentanyl-induced giddiness after the procedure, but in the days after the colonoscopy, I was unstoppable, writing articles, conducting Zoom interviews, playing with my grandchildren, and energetically hosting guests that Shabbat.

That doesn’t mean I’ll be frantically seeking my next fentanyl hit on one of Telegram’s illicit drug channels. But I suppose, if I absolutely must be put under again, I won’t say no to a little more of modern medicine’s miracle narcotic.

I first posted about taking this miracle narcotic at The Jerusalem Post.

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Horrors and heroes

by Brian on February 21, 2025

in In the News,War in Gaza

There is a principle in the tractate Brachot of the Mishna that suggests something seemingly outrageous: One is obligated to praise God for both the good and the bad. Not just to perfunctorily recite a blessing, but to make it wholeheartedly.

Panel discussion at Pardes where this text was presented

This is not a new concept. When someone dies, Jews traditionally recite the line, “Baruch Dayan Ha’emet” – “Blessed be the True Judge.” I’ve always viewed that as a formulaic and failed attempt to mitigate the pain of loss with a forced reaffirmation of faith.

But the Mishna goes one step further, making it clear that the blessing on the bad should be said with a similar level of enthusiasm as employed in acknowledging the good. 

Screen capture from Sefaria

This Mishnaic principle can be confusing. That is, until you look back at the last year and a half since Hamas’s October 7 invasion of southern Israel.

Is there a way to view October 7 – and the subsequent multi-front war, the never-ending missile sirens, the unbearable plight of the hostages, and the disgusting discourse and Israeli infighting – as something to be praised?

Yediot Ahronot’s Nadav Eyal helped me frame the narrative. In a recent article, Eyal wrote, “The word heroism shrinks in shame in the face of the returning hostages.” 

Eyal explained what he meant to Dan Senor on his “Call Me Back” podcast. 

“Those who have been kept by Hamas are now giving us a gift,” he said. 

How so? 

By “telling incredible stories of resilience and fortitude. I don’t think we expected these kinds of stories to come after more than a year of captivity, of being held by a fundamentalist, genocidal organization.”

Eyal referenced the painful yet profoundly touching story of some of the women captives meticulously dividing granules of rice evenly between them “down to the last grain” even as they were facing imminent starvation. 

“When you are willing to sacrifice yourself for others in this kind of a condition after being held for so many months, and you’re willing to share your food…this is truly heroic,” Eyal continued, returning to the appellation of “gift” as one to all of “Israeli society and the Diaspora Jewish community around the world.”

That “gift” included:

  • Eighty-year-old Gadi Moses who, Eyal pointed out, walked to freedom through a mob of armed Hamas terrorists with “almost a grin” on his face. (The emaciated hostages released the week after did their best to maintain their dignity.)
  • Agam Berger, the last of the IDF spotters to be freed, who was filmed just a few days after her release beaming at her younger sister’s graduation ceremony in the IDF.
  • Emily Damari’s now-infamous missing-fingers hand gesture which encapsulated a nation’s pride as her version of a “thumbs-up” was memed in a thousand ways across the web. Damari also pleaded with her captors to let her friend, the ailing Keith Siegel, go before her. Hamas refused.

It wasn’t just the hostages who have given us a reason to bless the bad of October. 7. 

Civilian heroes like Noam Tibon and Yair Golan drove directly into the killing fields of the Nova rave and the kibbutzim under attack to rescue Israelis in their private cars. 

Youssef Ziadna, a Bedouin Israeli resident of Rahat, works ferrying Israelis around the South in his minibus. On October 7, he was called by one of his regular customers to collect him from the Nova festival. Ziadna wound up rescuing 30 Jewish Israelis, all while dodging bullets and veering off-road to get them to safety. 

Nor can we forget Inbal Rabin-Lieberman, the 25-year-old security coordinator of Kibbutz Nir Am who, upon hearing unusual noises on the morning of October 7, quickly mobilized the kibbutz’s 12-member security team, distributing weapons and strategically positioning them. Rabin-Lieberman’s actions prevented any casualties within her community

When the government went AWOL on October 7, civil society stepped in, organizing food and supplies for soon-to-be-deployed soldiers. When there was no one left to work the fields near Gaza, Israelis from across all ages and demographics volunteered. This can-do spirit will hopefully constitute a cadre of future Israeli leaders.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the hundreds of soldiers who fell in battle as they hunted down terrorists and searched for our hostages. Or the incredible fortitude of Rachel Goldberg and Jon Polin, parents of murdered hostage Hersh, who shared a vivid personality with which to identify, humanizing a young man who otherwise would have been a faceless statistic to the rest of the world.

The Mishna’s message goes beyond the heroism of the last year-and-a-half. It suggests that even the most personal of tragedies can and should receive a blessing. The death of a parent, for example, will always be sad, but it also opens up opportunities for change, be that financial freedom or the freedom from enmeshed emotional patterns.

Could I find any positives in my father’s death 15 years ago? To be sure, his suffering from cancer and chemo ended. But it also opened up an opportunity to forge a closer relationship with my mother, who visited Israel for the first time after he had passed away.

Should I be reciting a blessing over my own current cancer status? I don’t think of myself as any kind of hero, but my burdens have certainly made me more rigorous in choosing how and with whom I want to spend my time.

Given the personal and national trauma all around us, wisdom from a 2,000-year-old text, it seems, might be just what we need right now. 

I was inspired for this week’s JPost column by a panel discussion held at Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies on the launch of a new book on the Mishna by Rabbi Dov Berkowitz. The specific analysis on “blessing even the bad of Oct. 7” comes from Rabbi Avie Walfish. I wrote this before the return of coffins this week, which makes it even harder to find anything to bless. The picture is from the panel discussion at Pardes.

I first wrote about this Mishnaic principle in The Jerusalem Post.

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Over the course of Israel’s multi-front war with Hamas, Hezbollah the Houthis and beyond, I’ve received much of my news from podcasts. If, before Oct. 7, I was hooked on pop culture, history and science-minded audio programming such as Fresh Air, RadioLab and This American Life, my AirPods have lately been tuned to a more Israel-focused digital frequency. 

Here are eight of the essential English-language podcasts that have kept me in the know.

Unholy: Two Jews on the News

My go-to Friday morning listen comes from two veteran journalists – Yonit Levi, lead anchorperson on Israel’s Channel 12 news, and Jonathan Freedland of The Guardian newspaper in the U.K. The two tackle the trending topics of the week, usually with a special guest such as former CIA director David Petraeus; New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman; historian Simon Montefiore; and Rachel Goldberg and Jon Polin, parents of murdered hostage Hersh. Levy tends to skew to a more centrist Israeli experience while Freedland presents a contrarian view that often veers leftward. Each episode ends with a weekly “mensch” and “chutzpah” award.

Call Me Back

Dan Senor co-wrote “Startup Nation” and “The Genius of Israel” with his brother-in-law Saul Singer. Senor’s credentials place him ostensibly on the right – he worked as a foreign policy advisor to Senator Mitt Romney – but he keeps his politics close to his chest as he interviews for Call Me Back regular pundits such as Yediot Ahronot’s Nadav Eyal, the Times of Israel’s Haviv Rettig Gur (who’s also a frequent contributor on that publication’s excellent What Matters Now podcast), and Hartman Institute senior fellow (and former legal adviser of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs) Tal Becker. Journalist Ronen Bergman, whose book, “Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations” raised eyebrows, has also appeared on the show.

For Heaven’s Sake

Donniel Hartman grew up in Jerusalem and is the president of the Shalom Hartman Institute. Yossi Klein Halevi immigrated from Brooklyn to Israel in 1982 after falling out with a somewhat sordid past, as told in his book “Memoirs of a Jewish Extremist,” when he was a young acolyte to inflammatory MK Rabbi Meir Kahane. Klein Halevi subsequently wrote the much-praised “Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor.” Their podcast delves into moral issues as much as the news, with Hartman playing the peacenik while Klein Halevi serves as his more militaristic yet always anguished foil. 

Israel from the Inside

Rabbi Daniel Gordis, prolific author and one of the founders of Jerusalem’s Shalem College, posts to his Substack newsletter and podcast daily and includes a variety of Left, Right and Center viewpoints, from the Democrats’ Gilad Kariv to Moshe Koppel, one of the architects behind Yariv Levin’s judicial coup legislation. Gordis tirelessly translates Hebrew press for his English-speaking listeners – he uploaded a version of the Yoni Bloch AI-driven fantasy peace video I wrote about previously with helpful subtitles.

State of Tel Aviv

Vivian Bercovici served as Canadian Ambassador to Israel from 2014 to 2016. She moved to Tel Aviv in 2021 and later to a kibbutz not far from the Gaza Strip. Every week or so, either former Jerusalem Post editor Yaakov Katz or former IDF spokesperson Jonathan Conricus joins the podcast to share their insights. A recent two-part series explored the tragic explosion of antisemitism in Canada. My one complaint with State of Tel Aviv – and it’s one that I have with other Substack-based podcasts as well – is that they put much of their best material behind a paywall. If I paid for every podcast I listen to, I wouldn’t be able to afford my weekly falafel!

The Jewish People’s Podcast

Speaking of Yaakov Katz, he’s been busy in the two years since he left the Post (where he still writes a must-read Friday column). A former defense analyst and military correspondent, his books include “Israel vs. Iran: The Shadow War” and “Shadow Strike: Inside Israel’s Secret Mission to Eliminate Syrian Nuclear Power.” Now a fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute, Katz hosts the organization’s podcast where he brings on special guests before discussing the week’s news with recurring panelists Prof. Gil Troy of McGill University; Dr. Shuki Friedman, vice president of JPPI; and JPPI senior fellow (and author of the must-read book “#Israeli Judaism”) Shmuel Rosner.

Israel Story

Originally conceived as a local version of “This American Life,” the Israel Story podcast, hosted by Mishy Harman, was the first Israeli one I got hooked on. I loved it so much that I even produced an award-winning episode on Better Place, based on my book about the bankrupt Israeli electric car company. Following Oct. 7, Israel Story pivoted to telling the stories of survivors, hostage families and ordinary Israelis coping with a new reality. I have a hard time listening to stories that are so raw; I look forward to the day when Israel Story returns to its original mission.

Honestly

Bari Weiss launched her politics podcast in 2021 after publicly accusing the newsroom at The New York Times, where she was employed, of rampant antisemitism. She quit the Times and while her resulting publicationThe Free Press, is not exclusively about Israel, Weiss and her team return to the topic frequently. She’s recruited commentators from all sides of the political spectrum, including Matti Friedman, author of such acclaimed books as “Who by Fire: Leonard Cohen in the Sinai,” and “Spies of No Country”; right-leaning historian Eli Lake; and staunchly pro-Israel journalist Douglas Murray, who recently held court at a series of sold-out stadium-sized “lectures” in Israel.

When you put it all together, For Heaven’s Sake, you’ve Honestly got an Unholy Inside Israel Story from the Jewish People’s State of Tel Aviv. So, Call Me Back already!

I first shared my podcast list at The Jerusalem Post.

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Last week, when the long-awaited Israel-Hamas hostage-ceasefire deal was announced, musician and entrepreneur Yoni Bloch released one of the most remarkable videos I’ve ever seen. Indeed, every time I watch it (and I’ve gone back multiple times), I can’t stop crying. I tear up even just talking to someone about Bloch’s creation.

An Israeli train passes the Giza Pyramids in Yoni Bloch’s new AI-generated music video

Bloch has penned a vision of what the Middle East could look like if peace – true peace – were to prevail. And he’s used some remarkable artificial intelligence tools to create those images.

I first met Bloch 13 years ago when I wrote an article about his transition from indie pop darling to high-tech big wig. After several years in the mid-2000s recording a string of quirky singles, Bloch pivoted to the tech world, where he founded Interlude.fm, a start-up that developed interactive software allowing viewers to manipulate what happens next in the video.

Should the girl go home with the boy or stay at the party? Should Andy dance with the waiters or hang with the cleaning staff in the hotel lobby? What are the ramifications of choosing the black vs the red t-shirt?

Interlude rebranded as Eko in 2016 and counts as clients brand names such as Walmart and Sam’s Club. The company has offices in Tel Aviv and New York. Investors include Intel Capital, Warner Music Group, Sony, and Sequoia.

Bloch invited my wife, Jody, and I to what turned out to be one of his last performances in Israel at the time before moving to the US to set up Interlude. It was a charming concert by this musician who was clearly already channeling his inner nerd.

Indeed, Yoni Bloch didn’t set out to become a rock star. A self-professed geek from the northern Negev town of Beersheba, Bloch loved playing both video games and music, he told me during our 2012 interview. After posting a few of his songs on New Stage, a sort of Israeli MySpace, Israeli music lovers discovered him, and he became a staple of the local alternative music scene. Israeli music label NMC subsequently picked up Bloch.

For his latest single, the catchy “Sof Tov” (“A Happy Ending”), which starts with Bloch nearly whispering the lyrics before breaking out into Aviv Geffen-like wall-of-sound guitar-powered crescendos, Bloch and his writing partner Barak Feldman didn’t employ Eko’s interactive smarts. Instead, the video leans into AI to create three minutes of pure, joyous fantasy.

Some of what’s shown on the video is real, but much of it is artificially generated, envisioning the emotional response in Israel – and in Bloch’s rendering, worldwide – to the release of the hostages held in Gaza by Hamas and its affiliates.

There are parades of people cheering as blue and white balloons fill the streets and Israeli jet fighters streak across the air. “Fake news” from the BBC, CNN and other international media outlets announces the release of every single hostage. “Leaders unite to end century-old conflict,” reads one chyron feed; “Historic peace: Israel and neighbors unite” reads another. Posters are torn down to reveal… living faces. Yellow ribbons are cut and tossed away.

Party on the Temple Mount…with a giant peace duck?

Dozens of green Egged buses are shown shuttling toward the kibbutzim in the Gaza envelope, returning its Israeli residents to a new, peaceful, and safe reality.

But that’s just the hors d’oeuvres. The main course is what the Middle East could look like if everyone lay down their arms and embraced peace.

A “Middle East Union” is formed – much like the European Union – allowing visa-free travel for everyone in the region.

That leads to a red and white Israeli train shown crossing a bridge and passing Egypt’s pyramids at Giza, followed by Israeli backpackers heading out on the new “Levant Trail” that expands the Israel Trail’s current 1,000 kilometers into Egypt in the south and Syria in the north.

In Tel Aviv, billboards advertise $299 flights to Tehran.

There’s a scene where Israelis tuck their second “emergency” passports (popular Portugal is shown) into a drawer, as the need to flee is gone.

In another bit, an Israeli woman receives her draft notice – it reads “canceled.” That’s followed by an image of an IDF recruitment office boarded up and a cache of rifles locked down.

The land adjacent to (the former) IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv has been turned into a recreation center called “Rabin Park.”

Israel is back in the World Cup, qualifying for the first time since 1970. An Israeli and Iranian judo player embrace (rather than the Iranian side refusing to even compete to avoid such “bad optics,” as has happened in real life in the past). Israelis celebrate in Times Square. A massive party takes place on the Temple Mount.

And then the kicker – for Bloch certainly and for pop music fans worldwide – Taylor Swift launches a worldwide “Peace tour” with a stop in Israel. The opening act: Yoni Bloch. The AI depicts the two of them embracing on stage.

AI brings Taylor Swift and Yoni Bloch together on stage

I’m crying again just writing this.

“Sof Tov” is not the first song to envision a peaceful future in the region. 1969’s “Shir LaShalom” and Naomi Shemer’s “Machar,” composed earlier in the 1960s to depict a future with no more social strife, are notable examples.

Is Bloch naïve? A dreamer out of touch with reality? Does the future he depicts stand a chance, or will it be relegated to the trash can of failed science fiction and fantasy?

“It’s a little exaggerated and a little real,” Bloch told Channel 12. “But the purpose of the song is not to describe reality but to remind people that they shouldn’t stop dreaming.”

It doesn’t matter. For a moment, the hostage deal gives us the faintest glimmer of hope, and so does Yoni Bloch.

But be sure to bring some tissues. You’re going to need them.

To see the video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=erLAgHIP6UM&ab_channel=YoniBloch

I first wrote about Yoni Block’s remarkable new video for The Jerusalem Post.

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Cancer is not a “battle”

by Brian on January 11, 2025

in Cancer,Health,Science

In 1971, President Richard Nixon declared a “war on cancer,” with the goal of “conquering” the disease by the time of the U.S. Bicentennial. $1.6 billion (the equivalent today of more than $10 billion) was dedicated to fund the crusade.

Richard Nixon

While the intention was certainly noble, an unintended consequence is that the “battle” cliche has been applied to patients not just pharmaceuticals, and we’ve been stuck with the cliche ever since, a term that New York Times staff editor Dana Jennings writes, after “staggering through prostate cancer and its treatment,” makes him “cringe and bristle.” 

Me, too.

Calling cancer a “battle” implies that there will be winners and losers. “If someone was fighting cancer but passed away, does it mean that person lost? That he or she didn’t fight hard enough? That they failed?” asks National Public Radio’s Leroy Sievers. 

“Using the battle metaphor implies that if a patient fights hard enough, smart enough and/or long enough, he or she will be able to win the war,” write Doctors Lee Ellis, Charles Blanke and Nancy Roach in JAMA Oncology. “Unfortunately, and with rare exceptions, patients with metastatic cancer cannot conquer cancer (win the ‘war’) no matter how hard they fight … the use of the battle metaphor implies a level of control that patients simply do not have.”

Moreover, referring to cancer as a “battle” minimizes the many real issues faced by cancer patients who must live with nausea, pain, fatigue and more. If the treatment works, they then must live with a fear of recurrence. 

Yvonne Ator understands where this all comes from. “Western culture is so uncomfortable talking about death that instead it created this ‘battle’ analogy that basically shames people who die from cancer,” she posted on social media.” 

The key question, she emphasizes, is “Are you running toward life or running away from death?”

The battle metaphor can result in bad medical outcomes – for example, agreeing to unnecessary treatment in the face of negligible chances. Indeed, some 62% of patients opt to receive chemotherapy within two months of dying.

That’s what happened to my father. When he was diagnosed with cancer in 2009, he chose chemo. 

He died three weeks after starting treatment. 

Ten years ago, before I was diagnosed with cancer myself, I wrote about medical ethicist Ezekiel Emmanuel’s provocative essay in The Atlantic, “Why I hope to die at 75.” Emmanuel’s thesis: Medicine may have prolonged life expectancy, but not quality of life. 

“Healthcare hasn’t slowed the aging process so much as it has slowed the dying process,” Emmanuel writes, which is why, when he turns 75, while he would not proactively end his life, “I will need a good reason to even visit the doctor and take any medical test or treatment, no matter how routine and painless. That means no screenings for cancer, no colonoscopies, no cardiac stress tests, no flu shots; not even antibiotics.”

Emmanuel reaffirmed his stance in a 2023 interview with the Times when he turned 65It’s one that’s resonated with me: not to give up but not to fight against the odds, either.

Patti Gustafson is the COO of the Swifty Foundation, a charity she started when her young son Michael died of medulloblastoma. He may have lost the “battle,” his mother writes, but “he continued to live despite the diagnosis and burdens he carried. [So] let’s save the war metaphors for research because we must not rest until that battle is won.” 

Kate Granger does not see anything “brave” about how she lives her life with cancer. 

“Bravery implies a choice. I didn’t choose to be affected by cancer and I don’t believe being placed on the courage pedestal helps me to continue living,” she writes in The Guardian. Cancer is a natural part of the human condition. “It has arisen from within my own body, from my own cells … to fight it would be ‘waging a war’ on myself.” Even those who “beat” cancer may not wish to have “the label of ‘survivor,’ which interferes with the return to normality,” Granger adds.

And yet, “no well-wisher omits the combative image: You can beat this. It’s even in obituaries for cancer losers,” writes Christopher Hitchens in his book Mortality. “You don’t hear this about long–term sufferers from heart disease or kidney failure.”

If the dominant cancer metaphor “describes tumors as an invading army, a barbarian horde attacking from outside city walls,” a better way to think about the disease, writes Yoon-Joon Surh, is as “local residents gone bad who slowly exploit the environment around them for their own gain.”

ESPN sports anchor Stuart Scott commented, before his death to cancer in 2015, that you don’t beat cancer by living forever, but “by how you live, why you live, and the manner in which you live.”

So, if cancer is not a battle, how else can we refer to people with the Big C? Here are some reframings:

“People affected by cancer”

“People living with and beyond cancer”

“People whose lives have been touched by cancer”

“People getting on with life despite cancer”

“Life raised to a higher power”

The writer Ullie Kaye adds that “instead of saying, ‘I know what it feels like,’ let’s say ‘I cannot imagine your heartbreak.’ Instead of saying, ‘You’re strong, you’ll get through this,’ let’s say ‘You’ll hurt, and I’ll be here.’ Instead of saying, ‘You look like you’re doing well,’ let’s say, ‘How are you holding up today?’ And when there are no words to say at all, you don’t need to try and find some. Love speaks in silences, too.”

I first explained how cancer is not a “battle” in The Jerusalem Post.

Image of Richard Nixon from the Presidential File Collection, Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division, available for use via Unsplash.

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Israel’s fourth quarter: catastrophe or hope?

December 29, 2024

Even before Oct. 7, the Fourth Quarter was trying to narrow the gaps between Israelis that the country’s current coalition has been manipulating.

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“I’ve never been with a bald man before”

December 13, 2024

As I started chemotherapy, I was prepared for my hair to fall out. Just not the way it began. My hair loss started more with a whisper than a bang. 

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How to preserve a legacy after death

December 2, 2024

A trifecta of physical and emotional stress washed over me, leaving me despondent over politics, war and a sudden change in my health. My cancer had come back.

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Hotel Montefiore: Enjoying Tel Aviv under the threat of war

November 26, 2024

The first thing Adam, the assistant manager, did upon our arrival at the Hotel Montefiore in Tel Aviv, was point out where the bomb shelters were

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Will AI put me out of a job?

November 16, 2024

I started using artificial intelligence by accident. I needed a transcription from Arabic to English. And then I plunged down the AI rabbit hole.

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