Terminology......

It's personal. It's my own personal feelings about using certain words to describe certain situations.

When someone you love has a terminal illness it hits hard. The prognosis may be that your loved one has months or years to live......and there are treatments they can endure that will hold the disease process at bay. For awhile.

But at some point, the disease "wins".

So, personally, I hate it when people say he/she is fighting cancer, or his/her whatever. Because, at the end, when you are faced with the goodbye there is a small voice saying "if only he/she had fought a little harder".

And that's not what happens. That's not reasonable. That's putting the "blame" for a sad ending on the person who "lost" the battle.

I much prefer to think of how the person I loved lived....did everything he/she could do to enjoy another day.....to wake to see the sunrise, to plant a garden, to take a walk, to read a book to a grandchild, to prepare another meal, to have friends come for a barbeque. He/she lived every moment.....and appreciated it.

Certainly strength and attitude come into play and are very important. Giving up would rob the patient and all their loved ones of time they could have spent and enjoyed together.

But don't tell me they didn't "fight" hard enough. I resent that....I know how hard they worked to live another day. It isn't that they didn't fight hard enough....it's just that they were up against a completely unbeatable "foe".