Cancer And Stick-to-itiveness

Stick-to-itiveness.

It’s not an elegant word is it?

It does serve a purpose though and a very important one.

If there’s one thing I’ve committed to since being told I have incurable cancer then it is ‘stick-to-itiveness’.

This is a another way of saying an unwavering pertinacity to stick with something, no matter what.

It’s what allows you to continue to do a task or go through an experience even though it is difficult or unpleasant.

Along with hard work and common sense, Thomas A. Edison said ‘stick-to-itiveness’ was also an essential quality.

So, what about this word in relation to cancer?

Consider treatment.

Treatment is not a ‘quick fix’. In some cases, it isn’t a fix at all but palliative.

But what it demands is an incredible amount of staying power because it knocks you about good and proper.

Trying to stay steady and consistent going through treatment is hard work and takes real guts to keep at it. As the side effects kick in and get worse then staying the course becomes a real mission. You have to be sticky.

Treatment might be doing us good (although it certainly doesn’t feel like that at the time!) but it can drain our drive and strain our resolve.

This is what endurance and fortitude look like.

Stick-to-itiveness means clinging to and hanging on to dear life and not giving up!

The cavalry aren’t coming. You are the cavalry!

The will to live is not a given. It has to be cultivated, worked at and above all desired.

My own persistent determination to keep going is doing just that – keeping me going.

I made up my mind pretty quickly that to cope and manage with being told I was seriously unwell was to find the tab ‘dogged perseverance and resolute tenacity’.

I found it and I live it full-time.

You’ve just got to be obstinate and optimistic too.

It’s a bit like the 2018 Nobel Prize winners Jim P. Allison and Tasuku Honjo for their discovery of cancer therapy by inhibition of negative immune regulation.

Both had to keep at it for years and years before anyone would treat them seriously.

There is another verb to describe this never giving upness and that is “To Erin Brockovich something”

Erin Brockovich was an unemployed single mother who became a legal assistant and almost single-handedly brought down a California power company accused of polluting a city’s water supply.

Her dogged persistence was the impelling force behind the largest medical settlement lawsuit in history. See the film and be inspired!

She describes stick-to-itiveness:

This is a very powerful word – the propensity to follow through in a determined manner, dogged persistence born of obligation and stubbornness. And I took that to heart and applied it to everything I did.

Pit-bull determination is a marvellous quality to have serious illness or not. We need it to get things done and in many cases to achieve justice.

As we aren’t born with stick-to-itiveness, we have to grow it, feed it and develop it.

It’s easy to give up. I think we’ve all been there.

But when you are fighting for your life, the motivation to stick with it becomes so much stronger.

Today’s a good example for me. I’m tired. I feel like sitting down all day and doing ‘nothing’. Of course, that’s never going to happen because I’ve made a contract with myself to get up, get out and make that effort and stick with my ‘training for treatment’ plan. I do it because I have to.

My training is sticky, meaning I have to adhere to it and bear up courageously! This requires tenacity, inner resources, reflective ability, coping skills, control, and self-growth. It also requires a fair degree of obstreperousness.

How do you grow grit? Persist, persist, persist and persist. Oh, and one more thing, persist.

Stick to it, stick with it, stick at it. Just keep sticky and be the stickier of old sticks!