Shadows

Writing about the Proton Story, I pointed out that, unlike many myths, it loses its dramatic impact very early on—even before the actual Quest, the treatment phase. The reason for this story anomaly is the disappearance of the urologist, the tale's primary villain or what story analyst Vogler calls the Shadow. No Shadow means no conflict for the Hero and no conflict means no drama. The urologist doesn't even get vanquished as does the villain in a rousing melodrama; instead the Hero-patient simply ignores him and moves on.

Of course another potential Shadow lurks in the background—the Shadow that started the whole story to begin with by invading the Hero's Ordinary World, the Shadow whose presence gives the urologist much of his power, the Shadow that disrupts the Hero's life, sends him to the Inland Empire, costs him time and money, and follows the him throughout the Quest of his treatments, the Shadow that may accompany the Hero on the Way Back and once more assert itself in the future, necessitating watchfulness on the part of the Hero as long as the Hero lives—the cancer itself.

So why doesn't this Shadow, prostate cancer, provide a villain that enlivens the Proton Story?

Partly because it's a-symptomatic. I have yet to meet a patient whose cancer has not metastasized who felt anything amiss "down there." Nor does the cancer or even the prostate become painful under treatment. And the treatments themselves cannot be felt, seen, smelled, or heard. Some patients experience mild side effects—fatigue, urinary discomfort, or gastro-intestinal disturbances—but these mostly respond to light medications or dietary adjustments, and patients uniformly ascribe them to the treatments, not the cancer. It's hard to agonize over a Shadow that is non-palpable.

Furthermore, given the efficacy of the proton beam, the cancer is a doomed, weak, ineffective villain. True, left untreated, it will kill the Hero. But under treatment, it's a goner. I haven't heard any patients worrying about their cancer. We're all certain that the cancer is incapable of resisting the treatments, that the doctors and the technology they wield has already won the battle. And everything we hear, be it statistics or anecdotes, reinforces that confidence. If Darth Vader had entered the movie on a gurney, festooned with IVs, gasping his last asthmatic breaths, and incapable of raising a hand, the audience would have fallen asleep.

But most importantly, the cancer is incapable of intentionality and hostility. It has no personal ambition, no capability to plot alternate strategies, no power to lash out at the Hero or the technicians or the doctors like a cornered beast. We describe some tumors as "aggressive," but that's a description of their energy, not their will power. Patients may describe their urologists as narrow minded, self-serving, greedy for fees, biased, angry, cunning, hostile, or threatening—all qualities of effective villains—but none of these characteristics can be ascribed to a tumor except as an analogy. Cancer's lack of consciousness and self-determination renders it uninteresting as a Shadow.

How strange! A network of hundreds of doctors, nurses, engineers, and technicians—with accumulated centuries of time in school and on the job—manipulate tons on tons of sophisticated equipment that cost hundreds of millions of dollars, all focused on destroying a cancer. But one urologist who brands a treatment option as voodoo medicine, prophesies doom for the patient, and tells the Hero he never wants to see him in his clinic again—this little man generates more story excitement than the lump that is the focus of all that panoply of machinery and personnel.

This difference points to the immense importance of human relationships. It underlies the difference between curing a disease and healing a patient.

Treatment count: 31 down, 14 to go.