sur•vi•vor (sərˈvīvər/) noun — A person who is able to live their life despite experiencing difficulties.

It’s been over six years since my cancer diagnosis and there are still times when I ask myself soul searching questions about my disease. A lot of the issues I’ve been thinking about lately concern the terms that we use when we talk about cancer, take survivor and survivorship for example. Although these expressions seem to be embedded in the cancer lexicon, there is still confusion regarding their meaning. For instance, when exactly did I become a cancer survivor? Who is considered to be a survivor? What criteria can or should be used to determine if someone is in this category?

“Cancer survivorship begins at diagnosis and covers the physical, psychosocial, and economic issues of cancer, from diagnosis until the end of life.” As a woman who has fought gynaecological cancer, I’ve come to accept this commonly used description of cancer survivorship, I accept the all-encompassing notion that’s presented in this definition because cancer does impact every single aspect of a person’s life. In retrospect, I also believe that my survivorship began that moment in my gynecologist’s office when he told me the devastating details of my pathology report. Simply being diagnosed with cancer made me a survivor, from this perspective I didn’t have to wait until after I had completed almost a year of treatment. Before the surgeons at the Tom Baker Cancer Centre cut into my body and before the first drop of chemotherapy solution ran ominously into my veins I was already a survivor in the eyes of the cancer community.

As the well-known gynecologic oncologist Dr. Rick Bouley explains, the commonly accepted definition of “survivor” within the cancer community is simply a person diagnosed with cancer. So once the terrifying sentence, “I’m so sorry, the biopsy shows that you have cancer,” leaves your doctor’s lips and pierces your soul, you begin life anew as a cancer survivor. I remember my first chemotherapy treatment and how insecure I was, part of me felt like I was less of a “survivor” than some of the other cancer patients who had been fighting the disease for years. I can laugh at the situation now, but I was rather worried that some of the veteran chemotherapy patients might be able to tell that I was a newbie. They would ascertain that I looked too healthy and had all of my hair! When I arrived for my first session, I noticed that the people around me seemed to have many types and stages of cancer—what is more, a good number of them in the waiting room exhibited full heads of hair.

Finally, the notion that some people seem to have, that disease outcome (whether you live or die) determines if you are a survivor is erroneous. I’m still inspired by the words of the late American sportscaster Stuart Scott. “When you die, it does not mean that you lose to cancer,” he said. “You beat cancer by how you live, why you live, and in the manner in which you live,” There’s a controversial, yet commonly held, view that a cancer diagnosis is a war or a battle that must be won. The problem with this philosophy is that it places the burden almost entirely on us patients. If we die or if our cancer ultimately recurs it’s because we didn’t think positively enough or we just weren’t strong enough to will it away.

Many healthy people think that if they are diagnosed with cancer they will be treated quickly and then all they’ll need to survive is a positive attitude and a fighting spirit. They are wrong. In my opinion, a person’s cancer outcome will depend almost exclusively on medical science. If someone’s cancer progresses, it’s a failure of the medical treatments that are currently available to them, plain and simple. I know of plenty of women who’ve succumbed to ovarian cancer and they were among the bravest and most resolute people on Earth. Ultimately, they are no less survivors than those of us who are lucky enough to be “cured” or to enjoy decades of remission.