• From a coworker with whom I often lamented that my extensive travel schedule was running me down: “So, do you think the stress of the job and being on airplanes too much caused this?” A naïve, uninformed search for some explanation, some reason how this could happen to someone as young and healthy as I.
• From someone I had dated, when I serendipitously ran into him (and I knew that he had heard about me through friends but hadn’t contacted me): “Oh, hi, Deb, new ‘do’?” My reply: “No,——[I’ll spare you his name], it’s a wig, but see, I’m actually getting my hair back underneath!” as I pulled the elastic of my wig away from my scalp and watched the blood drain from his face. I’d never seen him speechless before.
How to respond to stupid comments? Just move beyond them, ignore them. Instead, let the person know that you feel lucky that it’s been caught early, that your prognosis is very good, and that you will be fine. Your optimism and attitude will make them more comfortable (plus save them later embarrassment when, in retrospect, they realize how stupid they were). And besides, the critical issue is not how they respond upon the initial shock of the news, but about how they treat you through your entire experience. You might find that people initially eager to help fall by the wayside, while others, who may be shell-shocked at first, are there for the long haul.
Surround Yourself with Only Positive-Energy People.
While there are those that will say stupid things at first, they will accept the shock and move on to be helpful to you in their own ways. However, there are those who never get over the shock, those who can’t handle your diagnosis. They’re worried, upset, and the negative energy of their mere presence brings you down. “Hey, remember, I’m the one with cancer!” you want to shake them and scream. Guess what? It’s their problem, not yours, and if they can’t handle it, get them out of your life. You’ve got enough to handle right now, other than worrying about other people’s emotions. How to do it? One woman I met wrote a letter to her sister, who was driving her crazy because she was living out her own anxieties about the disease and what it might do to their family. She simply wrote that until her sister could control herself and focus on helping the situation, she’d appreciate it if she stayed away. It’s a pretty tough way to do it, but consider the experience a filtering mechanism to get the clutter out of your life. Surround yourself with only positive-energy people who will uplift you, people who will be there for you—unconditionally.
Assign a Weekly Medical “Reporter.” It Lets You Focus on More Newsworthy Matters.
Once the news spreads of your diagnosis, you will get so many calls that you’ll begin to think that AT&T has rerouted their central switchboard to you. It’s all very flattering as you realize just how many people in the world care about you and love you, and they are calling to offer support in any way they can. But it can also be very exhausting, both physically and emotionally. Physically, you simply might not have the energy to return all those phone calls, and tell everyone how you are that day. You might just want to rest. Emotionally, you’d rather jump off a bridge than tell one more person how much arm mobility you’ve regained post-surgery or how low your white blood counts were that week. Eventually, you’ll get confused, and won’t even remember who you told what. Furthermore, it will continue from the moment of diagnosis through to the day you remove your wig once your hair has grown back (if you lose it). So what to do? Some people find it helpful, especially early on, to assign a weekly medical “reporter,” someone you appoint on a rotating basis. This person is the point person to whom you can refer anyone who wants to know about your medical status. That way, you are freed from “reporting” your status repeatedly, and can turn your discussions to more interesting matters of what else is going on in your and your callers’ lives.
Have Several Versions of Your Story: The Hollywood Fluff, the Reader’s Digest Condensed Version, and the Great American Novel.
Not everybody needs to know your exact situation. But you probably need some people you can tell every nitty-gritty detail to help you cope with it. So you might determine who needs to know what as follows:
• Hollywood fluff . For those on the periphery of your life, those you see only sporadically, your party line might be something like, “Oh, I had some surgery and I’ve been recovering, but I’ll be fine.” You’re not lying, but simply glossing over some of the unpleasant details, and focusing on the hopefully happy ending, just like many Hollywood movies. I used this one when I attended a school reunion just three weeks after surgery, and the week before I started chemotherapy. When people I hadn’t seen in five years tried to hug me, I politely replied, “Please don’t hug me. I recently had surgery around my arm, and am still in some pain.” Their response was quite often, “Really? You look terrific for just having had surgery!” It made me smile.
• Reader’s Digest condensed version. This is the right take for casual friends and relatives with whom you are friendly but not too close. These are people you see on a regular basis, who need to know what you’ve been through in order not to expect too much from you during this time. You just won’t be your normal energetic, dependable self. However, there might be reason to be more guarded with this group, so stick to the facts, and focus on making these people comfortable that you are handling this well and will soon be back to normal. Your employer and coworkers probably fall into this category.
• Great American novel. Reserve the nitty-gritty details of what’s happening to your body for your inner circle, for those few people who are living this day in, day out with you. These are the individuals who you know are strong enough to handle it and be there for you for the long haul. They’re also the ones who will tell you candidly if they need to step away from the situation temporarily. Often, family members, especially spouses, are so emotionally involved in your cancer that they need space from time to time. Let them breathe. They’ll be back when you need them.
Take the Lead at Work: Shatter in the Workplace the Three Myths of Cancer.
Take a leading, proactive role at work from Day One. You will not only become a role model for your ability to manage your way through any crisis, be it work or cancer, but you will provide a valuable education for those with preconceived myths about cancer patients at work. The three most frequent myths—two of which extend far beyond the workplace—are:
• Cancer is a death sentence. Since people have so many misconceptions about survival statistics, they may inadvertently take a patronizing attitude toward you, trying to shield you from excess work, office politics, or whatever else. They may even pity you. While intentions may be good, they are often founded on false fears. Besides, it should be up to you to determine how much work you can handle right now, what issues you want to address, and what protection you might need. In fact, since work may be one of the few sources of stability in your life right now, it might be very unsettling to feel like you are being left out of the loop on what may be important issues and decisions.
• Cancer is contagious. People may avoid you based on their own irrational fears of contracting the disease. Interact with such people on relevant work issues as appropriate, and reinforce the positive aspects of how you can work together. You might be so helpful to them that they’ll just forget their fears and understand that cancer is not contagious.
• Cancer is a drain on productivity and efficiency. The pervasive myth is that cancer patients are a drain on short-term productivity (e.g., taking a lot of sick days) and that over the longer term they are not good “investments” to train, promote, and develop. The reality is that cancer patients and survivors are often more productive and work harder, because they have clarity on what’s important in their lives, and how work fits into those priorities. They focus on the essential elements of getting their jobs done, particularly when trying to balance the job demands with treatment schedules.
Discrimination based on such false perceptions