This morning, at the lab where I went for a follow-up blood test, the nurse who was taking care of me — and who had probably read my file — asked where I was in my health journey. The conversation unfolded simply, almost naturally, as it sometimes does in these places where lives briefly intersect. At one point, he used a word that often comes up when talking about cancer: remission.
It is a word I now hear regularly in medical settings. A word that, on the surface, should bring relief, since it means that the disease is no longer detectable and that the treatments have worked. And yet, each time I hear it, something resists. A part of me almost immediately feels the need to correct it, as if the term failed to fully translate what has been lived.
I find myself thinking, inwardly: “No, I am not in remission. I am healed.”
On my way home, this reaction stayed with me. Why do we speak of remission when it comes to cancer, while for most other illnesses we simply speak of healing? And more importantly, what does this word do to those who hear it — and who must then continue to live with it, sometimes for years?
This questioning led me to realise that remission does not only describe a medical state. It also shapes a particular relationship to time, as if life after illness were placed in an in-between space — neither entirely what it was before, nor completely free from what has been lived through.
A named horizon
In the course of cancer, certain words take on a particular place — almost silent, yet deeply charged. They circulate in medical exchanges, in conversations with loved ones, and in thoughts we do not always dare to express. Among them, the word “remission” holds a singular position. It appears as a kind of horizon, a point toward which everything seems to move, even when its exact meaning, for me, remains unclear.
Over time — through treatments, tests and appointments — life gradually reorganises itself around a single focus: moving out of illness. Not necessarily in a theoretical or strictly medical sense, but in a very concrete experience of returning to a form of normality. Being able to make plans without suspending them on results, no longer living according to medical protocols, and rediscovering a body that is not only perceived through the lens of monitoring.
In this context, the word “remission” settles in as an implicit promise. It does not always clearly say what it means, yet it carries the idea of a passage. As if it marked the moment when something closes, when illness recedes from the foreground, and when everyday life might begin to unfold more gently again.
There is, within this expectation, a form of shared evidence: the idea of a before and an after, separated by a line we imagine to be clear. And yet, more quietly, a transformation is already at work. Moving through illness does not leave a person untouched. Even as one projects forward — toward an exit, toward a return to life — there can be a more diffuse perception: that this “after” will not simply be a continuation of what was.
The paradox of remission
This is where a shift begins to take place.
If the word “remission” is meant to mark a way out of illness, it does not, in reality, create the feeling of a clear transition. It does not close the experience. It does not draw a distinct boundary between a before and an after.
On the contrary, it introduces a state that is harder to grasp. An in-between space, where the illness is no longer visible, yet not entirely consigned to the past. As if the body had changed status, without life fully recovering its previous continuity.
Silently, this word brings with it a particular relationship to time. A time that does not fully close. The parenthesis of illness is no longer open in the same way, yet it has not closed either. It remains there, in the background, like a trace that does not entirely fade.
Life goes on, of course. One walks, works, laughs, makes plans. And yet, within the very structure of time, a shift has taken place. There is no longer that sense of an obvious return to what once was.
And perhaps this is the true paradox of remission: it signals an exit, yet it does not carry the feeling of an ending.
Why medicine uses the word “remission”
If this word can feel unsettling on an inner level, it is not used at random.
It belongs to a precise language — that of medicine — which does not aim to translate lived experience, but to describe an observable state. To say that someone is in remission means that the visible signs of the disease have disappeared, that the treatments have worked, without asserting that the illness has definitively gone.
In this context, the intention is neither to minimise what has been lived through, nor to maintain a sense of worry, but to remain as close as possible to what can be objectively observed. The body, despite everything we understand about it today, remains in part unpredictable. Medicine proceeds with that limitation.
And this is perhaps where a form of inner tension arises.
Because hearing this word can be frustrating. Not because it is inaccurate, but because it does not fully acknowledge what has been lived. It does not symbolically close the experience. It does not allow one to fully say: it is over.
And yet, at the same time, it carries a deeper form of coherence. In its own way, it reminds us that no absolute certainty is possible. That life, as a whole, escapes any definitive guarantee.
What cancer makes visible, with particular intensity — this uncertainty, this impossibility of total control — in fact belongs to the human condition itself.
Perhaps this is also why the word can be disturbing: because it does not only speak about illness, but about something that exceeds us, something we would sometimes rather not face.
Naming it differently
Faced with this word, an inner movement takes place almost immediately. A gentle but clear form of resistance. As if this word were not enough to express what has been lived, nor to hold what has been transformed.
And so another sentence emerges, inwardly, almost without my choosing it: no, I am healed.
This statement is not a rejection of medical language. It does not attempt to explain what, by nature, escapes any guarantee. It responds to a different need.
The need to symbolically close what has remained open.
The need to reclaim one’s own narrative, beyond the terms used to describe the state of the body.
For me, the word healing does not refer only to the disappearance of illness. It points toward something that exists beyond words, and becomes harder to name. A kind of inner shift. Like a sudden jolt that reorients perception and reshapes priorities.
What this passage has opened does not remain confined to the body. It engages a broader, quieter transformation, one that continues to unfold long after the end of treatments.
And paradoxically, it is perhaps also the word “remission” that reminds me of this. Not as a threat, but as a subtle invitation: nothing is ever fully secured. Life does not stabilise once and for all. It calls for presence, for attention, almost for a renewed form of engagement.
What I call “healing”, then, does not erase this reality. It rather names the way I now choose to inhabit what I have been given to move through.
What this touches
As I kept resisting this word, I eventually felt the need to understand where it came from. Looking into its etymology, I discovered that it comes from the Latin remissio, meaning release, loosening — even forgiveness.
What struck me, as I looked a little deeper, is that the word is also rooted in a religious history. It evokes the remission of sins, the idea of forgiveness granted, of a burden lifted. As if what belongs to weight, tension or even a form of inner debt could be set down.
This exploration of the word does not give meaning to illness. It does not explain anything, and I would be careful not to project any intention onto it.
But it opens a resonance.
In its original sense, remission does not point to a definitive disappearance, nor to a clear closure. It evokes a movement instead: like a tightening grip that slowly loosens, releases, and no longer holds with the same intensity.
And at this point, the word itself begins to unfold differently.
At first, as a kind of interruption — when life, as it was unfolding, is suddenly brought to a halt. A rupture, abrupt and disorienting.
Then, over time, as a different kind of calling. Not in the sense of a destiny or a lesson imposed, but as the possible emergence of another way of being in the world — perhaps more conscious, more attentive — without ever becoming an obligation.
I would not say that illness necessarily transforms those who go through it. That would be projecting a fixed meaning onto something that can only be lived in a singular way. But for me, it deeply unsettled my certainties. It interrupted the course of my life, shifted my reference points, and opened a space in which another way of being in the world began to emerge.
And this opening touches something broader than illness itself.
It brings us into contact with a reality we often keep at a distance in the ordinary flow of our lives. A simple reality, yet difficult to fully integrate: nothing is ever entirely secured.
Cancer makes this visible in a stark and undeniable way. It confronts us with the fragility of the body, the unpredictability of the living, and the possibility of an ending.
But what it reveals with such intensity does not belong to it alone.
This uncertainty is already there, in the background of every life. It does not begin with illness. It simply becomes visible, embodied, almost impossible to ignore.
And perhaps this is where another relationship to what is can begin to emerge.
Not in a state of immediate peace, nor in complete acceptance — as this takes time, and sometimes an inner work that is still ongoing — but in a form of lucidity.
A lucidity that does not protect, but illuminates.
That does not erase the difficulty, but gently shifts perception.
What illness reveals, then, does not concern only those who have encountered it. It brings to light something we all share, even if we are not confronted with it in the same way.
Living time differently
Ultimately, what this word continues to work within me is not only what it refers to, but the way it transforms my relationship to time.
Nothing is quite the same as before. Not because life has become heavier, but because it has, in a way, come closer.
Simple things take on a different density. A morning, a light, a presence. Moments that might once have gone unnoticed, and that now register differently.
This does not mean a constant sense of peace. Nor a form of wisdom that would be acquired once and for all. There are still resistances, lapses, moments when old rhythms take over again.
And yet, something remains.
A finer attention, perhaps. A way of no longer postponing everything. A fleeting awareness, at times, that time cannot be possessed.
Remission, in what it leaves open, does not only say that the illness has receded. It may also invite us to inhabit differently what continues.
If you are moving through a moment of transition, and feel the need to make sense of what is unfolding, I offer birth chart readings.
Not as a way to predict what will happen, but as a space to understand, integrate, and inhabit your experience more consciously.
You can explore this work here.