Bringing a Metaphor Into Focus: Repairing Cancer's Narrative Wreckage Through Artistic Practice

A serious illness wrecks a life's narrative. I learned this firsthand when I was diagnosed with breast cancer after a routine mammogram screening. In the United States, breast cancer is frequently described as a transcendent event that improves women; this narrative is entwined with metaphors of journey and war. I rejected those metaphors, and through artistic experimentation, I found a new way to describe and relate to my body, my breast, and my cancerous tumor. In this article, I briefly discuss illness narratives, breast cancer's master narrative, and cancer metaphors, before describing how artistic practice acted as a form of sensemaking as I recast, repaired, and rewrote my life's narrative.