A Tango With Cancer

“Tordre le cou au crabe.” To wring the crab’s neck.

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It’s one of those wonderfully French expressions that sounds faintly ridiculous until you know what it means.

According to Dr Google, le crabe – the crab, is an old colloquial term for cancer. The word itself can be traced back to the Ancient Greek karkinos, the origin of carcinoma. Hippocrates apparently thought some tumours resembled a crab, with swollen veins reaching out like claws gripping their prey.

And tordre le cou – to wring the neck – means to annihilate, destroy, make something disappear for good.

Put the two together and you get:

Tordre le cou au crabe.
To wring the crab’s neck.“

Vivid.

Combative.

Almost gloriously aggressive.

And, apparently, a popular way of talking about overcoming cancer in France.

But here’s the thing.

I never thought of myself as fighting cancer.

When I was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer, in France, in October 2017, I was certainly determined to get through it.

But fight?

No.

That wasn’t the language that came naturally to me.

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October. Really?

It was perhaps the worst month of the year to be diagnosed with breast cancer.

Because October is Pink October.

Octobre Rose.

Whatever you want to call it, it’s only the 5th of the month and I’m already pinked out.

Everywhere you look: pink ribbons, pink products, pink campaigns, pink slogans, pink everything.

And yes, awareness matters.

Early detection matters.

Research matters.

Access to treatment matters.

Support matters.

But sometimes I wonder what happens when a complex, frightening, life-altering disease gets squeezed into a colour palette and a handful of relentlessly upbeat slogans.

Because cancer isn’t pink.

Cancer is fear.

Cancer is uncertainty.

Cancer is waiting.

Cancer is side effects and scans and statistics.

Cancer is trying to work out what on earth is happening to your body while everyone around you is telling you to stay positive.

And sometimes cancer is anger.

Sometimes it’s grief.

Sometimes it’s boredom.

Sometimes it’s dark humour.

Sometimes it’s sheer exhaustion.

And sometimes it’s even laughter.

There is no single colour for any of that.

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The pink machine keeps rolling

Here’s one of the gems from 2025, freshly shared again on Instagram this week.

Not much seems to have changed.

And here’s another from October 2025.

Sadly, this hasn’t changed either.

15 year olds!!!

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Maybe I’m missing the point.

But nine years after my own diagnosis, I find myself looking at some of this messaging and wondering:

Are we really still here?

Have we really learned so little about how people experience cancer?

Because greater awareness shouldn’t mean louder slogans.

It should mean better understanding.

It should mean informed action.

It should mean listening to the people actually living with the disease.

And it should mean making room for experiences that don’t fit neatly inside a pink ribbon.

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So, about the crab…

I actually rather like the French expression.

Not because I believe cancer is something you can simply defeat through sufficient determination.

But because it acknowledges something visceral.

Cancer gets under your skin.

It grabs hold.

And sometimes you want to grab it right back.

Maybe that’s where my tango comes in.

Not a battle.

Not me versus cancer, standing on opposite sides of a battlefield.

A tango.

Something complicated.
Intimate.
Unwanted.
Sometimes graceful.
Sometimes clumsy.
Occasionally ridiculous.

And always requiring you to pay attention to the next step.

I didn’t need to be a warrior.
I needed to keep dancing.“

Nine years on, that’s probably closer to how I think about it.

Not winning.

Not losing.

Not fighting the good fight.

Just navigating something I never asked to dance with.

And doing my best to decide how I want to move through it.

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What Pink October should mean to me

Do we need greater awareness? Or:

Informed action.

Honouring everyone affected by this disease – those diagnosed today, those living with it, those who have died, and the people who love and care for them.

And supporting those who are searching for healing.

That, to me, is worth talking about.

That is worth doing.

And that is what we do at Double-zero.

Not more pink noise.

More understanding.