A striking phenomenon that Anne Boyer points out in her book The Undying is the representation of the cancer, specifically breast cancer, patient in literature, film, and other forms of media. She describes that this account of the cancer patient does not come from the patient themself, but from a family member, spouse, or close friend of them. She describes, “In literature, one person’s cancer seems to exist as an instrument of another person’s epiphanies, and sickness takes the form of how a sick person looks” (Boyer, 111). The experience of the sick person is often told through their loved one’s hardship or grief, instead of relying on the firsthand account of the sick person themselves. This made me ask myself: Does the loved one’s experience with the sickness override that of the sick? The obvious answer it may seem is no, of course not, the sick person experiences tremendous amounts of pain while always carrying around the emotional weight of their diagnosis and the question if they will even survive. 

Anne Boyer’s text illustrates the experience of being a breast cancer patient in modern times from her own experience but also harping upon the shared experience of many patients as they deal with the healthcare system. Boyer structured her text by devoting the first half of it to her diagnosis, treatment, and her relationship to her illness, while in the second half, explaining the frustrations she experienced while dealing with the modern health care system. In structuring the text this way, she sets up a call to action (an inherent example of writing and social change) to restructure the way the world thinks of sick people and to save their lives.