“The war analogy is so embedded in our language about disease. We say people
"fight" cancer, or "lose" their lives, as though our bodies are not nature itself engaging in the regular ole cycle of birth, decay, and eventually death. When we use language of battle, we make winners and losers out of people we love when in reality, their bodies are either responding to treatment or not. Plenty of people who want to "win" against cancer still die.”