A major component of Lorde’s experience revolves around the social “concentration upon breast cancer as a cosmetic problem” and not the life-threatening disease which it truly is. (Lorde 48) Due to the sexualization of women’s bodies as “essentially decorative machines of consumer function”, the primary objective of breast cancer recovery in medical settings is often focused on a patient’s aesthetic and the “normality” of the female body. (Lorde 57) By highlighting the intersection of medicine and the hyper-sexual perception of women, Lorde offers an insight which is ignored in a traditional understanding of breast cancer. “A woman's perception of her own body and the strengths that come from that perception are discouraged, trivialized, and ignored” due to the impending sexualization and social conventions of the female image. (Lorde, 57) Given the stigma of the de-feminization that breast cancer imposes on women, it pushes them into a perceived protective silence. This silence is not specific to experiences of breast cancer alone since all people “share a war against the tyrannies of silence” in some way. (Lorde, 13) Yet, when people are silent about their experiences, it only adds to the misunderstanding and foreignness of the experience itself. Lorde’s near-death experience allowed her to “put fear into a perspective” and use it as a strength. (Lorde, 13) Realizing that death was not a question of “if”, but “when” Lorde broke the silence on the realities of breast cancer in its psychological, mental, and social senses. Not only was this done as a form of retaliation on the perception of the illness, but also as a method of self-healing and adjustment to her new self and a reminder to other survivors that they are not alone in their experience. 

The Health Humanities offer a voice to the underestimated forces that play into one’s experience of health. Lorde’s work is a prime example of how the humanities can offer insight to the social and psychological factors that impact health which corporate medicine has ignored. 

I think that her experience of pressure and dismissal from doctors and nurses displays the disconnect between medicine and the humanities. The trauma of experiencing a cancer diagnosis, treatment, and recovery is one that requires immense support. However, women face the least humane support. There is an avoidant behavior specifically when discussing the psychological toll mastectomies have on their survivors. Most notably, there is a sense of loneliness and isolation. Women, doctors, and nurses are not willing to openly discuss normalizing living without breasts because it is stigmatized. Without the normalization of mastectomies and the open support of survivors that prefer to stay natural, how are medical communities truly fulfilling the treatment of patients. For women to heal, mentally and physically, they must be given the space and support by medical professionals to come to terms with their new form of natural.  

  

Specifically for breast cancer, the emphasis on cosmetic looks and reconstruction right after the surgery seems to be emphasizing the wrong type of suffering that is experienced post-op. Lorde recalls her return to the hospital after a painful ten days, where she was shockingly faced with judgment for not wearing the silicone breast. Her worries at this time were not for cosmetics, but "...about my chances for survival, the effects of a possibly shortened life upon my work and my priorities. Could this cancer have been prevented, and what could I do in the future to prevent its recurrence?" (Lorde 49) While she recognized that these people were just trying to help, they were doing more harm than good for her. The abundance of breast reconstruction plans thrown at her days after surgery did not help her with the concerns she was really facing, but rather made her feel ashamed. This shed light on the over-sexualization of women and the power dynamics inherent in the medical system and how they intersect with race, gender, and sexuality. Her writing underscores the role of the humanities in advocating for more compassionate and patient-centered care. While it is true that some women would care greatly about the physical changes that come with a mastectomy, every patient is different and should be cared for accordingly. Lorde's work is a poignant reminder that the humanities are not separate from medicine but rather an integral part of it. The profound impact that empathy, and personalized human connection can have in the realm of healthcare is indispensable. 
 
Lorde, Audre. The Cancer Journals. 1980. San Francisco, Ca Aunt Lute Books, 2020. 

 

Something that Lorde said that made me stop and think was, breast reconstruction is the only medical procedure that serves no purpose other than improving one’s appearance and how conforming to these social norms would only depersonalize those who do so. Many of us would find ourselves gasping for air as we submit to fear rather than standing tall shouting out our stories, because of our immense horror of fear. Fear of being different, therefore resulting in our loud silence. Throughout the story Lorde talks about this idea, which is the idea that "It is not difference which immobilizes us, but silence," (Lorde 23).
   

The value of a story is one of the major topics we have been discussing in class when it comes to global health and humanities. Frequently, we hear the single story of a patient who experiences difficulties but nearly makes a perfect recovery. We hear a story in which discomfort is not actually excruciating, where lies are made, and a perfect bow to wraps up the story. However, Lorde articulates that isn’t always the reality, and often times it isn’t. Rather than hiding behind her words, she uses them to share her truth and embrace the story she has to offer. She shares about how she felt transparent and misunderstood. At this time, she required support not only from her doctors, but also her nurses who often failed at that as well. While she was hit with the "icy sensations of that frigid room," (Lorde 27) she was met with empty hands. When she was in pain, she was met with the stern voices of the nurse telling her to be quiet as there were other patients, completely ignoring the fact that she was one as well. 

No one ever really talked about the entire story, and for this reason, Lorde’s story is so important in the fields of not only medicine but also humanities. Her story adds to the field of health humanities, and provides others who are experiencing similar difficulties, a sense of understanding. It offers a more realistic representation of the world we live in, which is a world with various views, procedures, and experiences.  

Citation: 
Lorde, Andre. The Cancer Journals. Penguin Books, 2020.

Lorde, Audre. The Cancer Journals. Penguin Books, 2020. 

But fear and anxiety are not the same at all. One is an appropriate response to a real situation which I can accept and learn to work through just as I work through semi-blindness. But the other, anxiety, is an immobilizing yield to things that go bump in the night, a surrender to namelessness, formlessness, voicelessness, and silence. (Lorde 7). 

A forgotten fact of breast removal is the amount of hormones produced there. Despite your feelings for your chest–I felt repulsion for mine, while she felt love–its removal will negatively impact your emotional state for weeks. I was a mess for a long time after, I can only begin to imagine her depth of sorrow post-mastectomy. 

Then to add to that pain is society’s view of having one breast. It was assumed that Lorde would want a replacement, and she was judged harshly for not. The idea that a woman could want to exist without two breasts is repulsive and brings down the morale of a breast cancer office. How dare she not look on the bright side of things. But why was she not given the right to be sad? To mourn the loss of an important part of herself? And further, be blamed for her own cancer. Lorde read in a newsletter that happy people do not get cancer. Her response was only human, “Despite my knowing better … for a moment this letter hit my guilt button. Had I really been guilty of the crime of not being happy in this best of all possible infernos?” (66). Everyone gets cancer. Being good, happy, and otherwise healthy will not save someone’s cells from going haywire. No one, especially doctors, should turn illness into a moral issue. Doctors owe their patients, and their readers, help free from judgment. Even silent judgment. 

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Silence is addressed as a harmful possible side effect of a near-death experience like cancer. It is hesitantly portrayed as the easier option that many opt to take, although she clarifies, “It is not my intention to judge the woman who has chosen the path of prosthesis, of silence and invisibility, the woman who wishes to be 'the same as before”(7). After recovery, Lorde could have chosen to use the lambswool to stuff her breast to welcome the silence that the doctors and even women she spoke to encouraged her to embrace. She explains that silence is rooted in fear and apprehension of what people’s reactions might be. The worst part about silence is not the very act of silence but what is lost from not sharing their stories. The act of Audre Lorde sharing her journals with the world enables more people to relate to or sympathize with issues within the medical field and intersectionality. In a powerful summary of her thoughts on silence she says, “We can be silent but it will not make us less afraid”, which shows her profound relationship with breaking silence and showing the raw truth that many find comfort in hiding, which–as she notes– is understandably so. 

Lorde, Audre. The Cancer Journals. Penguin Books, 2020.