9. Identify physician and caregiver responsibilities in caring for the terminally ill

Section 4Exercise 10 CancerRebecca Pope

In her memoir of cancer, Seeing the Crab, Christine Middlebrook writes the following closing words: “Bless [my daughter], bless all my children, my husband, my friends who have found the strength to stay with me in this journey. Bless them for not turning their pain of losing me into frantic activity to keep me alive, for not abandoning me by clinging to the illusive idea of keeping me with them. So hold my hand. Love me. Weep with me our tears of separation. Release me to the inevitable. I am not imagining figures of light. I am making the darkness conscious.” P.212

Rebecca Pope on cancer narratives

Study questions

1. What kind of a ‘journey’ is cancer, to use Christine Middlebrook’s word, in modern America? What makes it different from other illnesses, for example, dying of influenza or in a car crash? Medicine and Society
2. Middlebrook lashes out against certain societal concepts and expectations related to dying from cancer. These include the assumption of personal responsibility for getting the cancer, for healing from the cancer through such methods of visualization, the expectation that the dying person will learn or become wiser from their ordeal, and that religion and spiritual beliefs make the process easier. Judging from Middlebrook’s final quote, what is her version of what dying is all about?
3. How does the quote suggest that her narrative deviates from Dr. Pope’s description of the ‘cancer narrative’?