Who Am I

This article is part of the “Healing in Two Voices” series developed within the e-QuoL project, which brings together survivor voices and professional reflections on life after childhood and adolescent cancer.  In this series, professional contributions do not aim to add explanations or conclusions. They create spaces for reflection — ethical, psychological, and clinical — opened by the testimonies themselves.

1

“Who am I?
A survivor? A former patient? Someone living beyond cancer? A patient?
Honestly, I don’t really like the word ‘survivor’.
In French, it can mean staying alive after someone else has died… and I don’t feel comfortable carrying that.
It brings me back to something heavy—almost like another time, another context.
It reminds me of stories of war, where surviving can mean that others didn’t.
And that’s not something I want to carry with me.
A former patient?
Well… considering the ongoing health issues and the number of medical appointments I still have, I’m not sure that fits either.
A person after cancer?
Maybe…
A patient?
Probably, in some ways.
It’s strange, all these labels.
As if there were a need to group us all under the same name.
But with so many different types of cancer, I sometimes feel like we’ve all been through very different experiences.
So what really connects us?
Is it the treatments? The fear? The way our body has changed?
Or something more invisible—something harder to put into words?
Sometimes I feel like I’m standing in a train station.
People come and go. Some stay longer, some leave quickly.
At times, I find myself sitting next to others who have been through something similar.
We recognize each other, we share a moment, a language, a feeling.
And then… at some point, I feel the need to get up and catch another train.
To move on. To go somewhere else. Is it because I am already 43 years old ?
At first, I didn’t feel I belonged in patient associations.
Then, I found my place there—some reference points, some strength.
And later, I needed to step away again.
At some point, it felt suffocating… like it was defining me too much, keeping me in a certain story.
And I needed to see something else, be something else, live something else.
Is it possible to belong—and not belong at the same time?
To recognize yourself in others, but not want to stay there forever?
Maybe identity is not something fixed.
Maybe it moves, just like we do.
I think there is a time for everything.
A time to stay. A time to connect. A time to leave.
And maybe it’s worth allowing yourself to move between all these spaces,
again and again, at different moments in life.

Anonymous patient, France

2

As a pediatric oncologist, I often hear questions of identity from survivors of childhood cancer, even when they are not expressed directly. “Who am I?” is a theme I recognize in many forms. Sometimes it appears as discomfort with labels, sometimes in the way certain words simply do not seem to fit.

“Survivor. Former patient. Someone living beyond cancer. Patient.” In medicine, we use these terms almost naturally. They help us communicate, structure care, and organize follow-up. But over time, I have learned that these words are not neutral, and that they land differently for each person.

In the follow-up care, I see how varied this experience is. Some young adults remain closely connected to the medical world, while others want or need distance; many move between these positions over time. The word “survivor” can feel right for some, and completely wrong for others, or even take on a different meaning for the same person over time.

What I have learned is that identity after childhood cancer is rarely fixed. It changes with time, with life stages, with a person’s needs. And I no longer see this as a contradiction; it feels human and natural.

Jelena Roganovic – Pediatric oncologist. Children’s Hospital Zagreb, Croatia