Mojo and the Mess

There’s a phrase people love to throw at cancer patients: “Keep fighting.”

It sounds strong. It sounds inspiring. But here’s the truth—cancer doesn’t care how hard I fight.

If survival was really about willpower, no child would ever die of cancer. No parent. No newlywed. No young person with dreams still waiting to unfold. But they do. And it’s not because they didn’t fight—it’s because cancer doesn’t play fair.

When people tell me to “just stay positive” or “you can beat this if you fight hard enough,” it feels like they’re handing me a weight I can’t carry. Because when the cancer spreads, or the scans come back worse, or the treatments stop working, what am I supposed to believe? That I didn’t fight well enough? That my failure to heal is my fault?

Let me tell you what fighting really looks like.

Fighting is dragging my body out of bed when every inch of me screams to stay under the covers. Fighting is letting a stranger stick a needle in my chest for the thousandth time, even though my skin is bruised and my veins are tired. Fighting is sitting in another sterile room, hearing the words “progression” and “spread,” and still showing up again the next day.

Fighting is not smiling through it all. Fighting is crying in the shower and still drying my face, putting on clothes, and walking out the door. Fighting is admitting I’m not okay and letting my husband hold me when I don’t feel strong. Fighting is breathing through another round of pain and saying, “Not today. Not yet.”

The truth is, cancer isn’t a battle you win or lose. It’s not about bravery points or positivity levels. It’s a disease. And no amount of grit changes its biology.

So please—stop telling cancer patients they can beat this if they just fight hard enough. We are already fighting. Every breath we take, every day we wake up and live another day, is proof of that.

Don’t measure our worth in how hard we fight. Just sit with us, love us, and let us be human.

📩 Subscriber Note:

If you’ve ever been told to “just keep fighting” when you felt like you were already giving everything—know this: you are not failing. You are not weak. You are already doing enough, exactly as you are. Drop a comment below if you need that reminder today.