What to Say to Someone Who Is Waiting for Cancer Results
The Question You Should Never Inquire Someone Waiting for Cancer Results
If you're former enough to read this, you'll know someone who's had cancer. Maybe you've lost a relative, a friend, a work acquaintance… the list goes on. The disease isn't discriminating. And at that place's a lot of information about it present, data on how to spot it, how to get treatment, how to cope with treatment... But my own experience recently fabricated it starkly clear that there isn't a lot out there on how to exist effectually people who are looking down the barrel of a cancer diagnosis.
When I was young, a lady from my family's church was diagnosed with chest cancer. I was too young to process what was happening to her, how much she — as a single woman in her seventies, facing stage four cancer — must take felt. Notwithstanding, what has stayed with me was her love of reading. She didn't want to talk to me about her illness, she wanted to talk to me about books. The realisation that someone could read to stave off that kind of fear is probably why I'm a writer today. It definitely planted to seed for me to kickoff writing my novel, Love Imperfection v years ago.That seed sprouted when a friend challenged me to write a romantic comedy with a breast cancer survivor similar her who was "real" with people around her who had "real" reactions to her illness.
In the years from my novel's first draft to pre-publication, I watched other friends kick cancer'southward ass, saw how their families coped, and felt confident the whole time that my novel had captured the realities of existence a cancer survivor in a mode that did them justice. I'd asked the right questions, I'd gotten the emotional stuff correct. Or at least I thought I had, until a lump was discovered in my left chest during a routine check on New Yr'south Eve in 2018.
I remember the verbal expression the radiographer — who'd been telling me that it drove her mad when people confused what she did with radiology — was wearing when she stopped talking, pursed her lips and frowned at something on the screen. In that location were clicks while she snapped a motion picture of the image and a moment of tension before she told me she'd exist back in a infinitesimal. Soon there was someone else in the room who was also frowning, running the ultrasound tool over the spot on my breast and clicking too.
"You've found something?" I asked, ever the observant one.
"Aye." The answer was abrupt and then the radiographer put a hand on my arm, her expression kind just grave. "You're going to accept to talk to your GP about seeing a specialist. Practice information technology direct away."
Being the kind of person to cheerfully downplay existence smacked across the face, only to go "OW" a week later when it's dawned on me I've got a cleaved jaw, I smiled and thanked them. I even think I joked a chip. And then I went home and calmly booked in for my GP. She sent me off to a specialist, who promptly sent me for more tests, before booking me in for a carbon biopsy. (For anyone who doesn't know, a carbon biopsy is when they inject black stuff into the lump so it can exist seen and extracted during surgery.) And every one of these appointments featured caring medical professionals who all treated me similar someone who may soon receive the worst kind of news. Because let's face it, they take to give the worst kind of news to people every twenty-four hours.
And this is where I discovered something that doesn't actually characteristic in books, movies or even in the stories of friends who've survived the entire ordeal.
This stuff all takes time. And that sucks.
At first information technology's the waiting in between the tests — the gap betwixt that first scan and the GP appointment. So it's the wait for the specialist. Then it's the wait for the results of the test the specialist sends me on. So it's the wait for surgery (scheduled for Valentine'southward day). Then information technology's the look for a calendar month after surgery for those results to come in. During all of that time I had no idea if I had cancer or but something benign that I could walk away from with an interesting story later. (I'chiliad a writer, everything can be turned into a story for later.)
And during this time my mind worked overtime. I made contingency plans for all eventualities. I'd seen enough friends in this very situation to know how it could get. Some have had mastectomies. Some accept had breast reconstruction. Some had lumpectomies… I fifty-fifty gave my character, Beth a double mastectomy considering it was a friend'due south experience. Life choices were existence evaluated. Plans for the future were being considered. I suddenly had to face how I felt most my breasts. Did I like them enough to want to continue them if the news was bad? Did I want implants? Would I want preventative surgery? How would that touch my view of myself, my sexuality, my husband's view of me? (He insisted he didn't care as long as he has me, and to this 24-hour interval I believe him.)
And the affair is, I didn't know if I had cancer yet. I was in a limbo where I didn't really want to tell anyone, because what would I tell them? Firstly, why worry people? And secondly, I have a number of acquaintances — and sadly, family unit members — who revel in illness, and I couldn't behave the thought of them speculating over my state of affairs. This was my problem, not something that I wanted people getting a vicarious, morbid thrill from. I refused to be the subject field of gleeful awfulizing over someone's morning coffee and cake. (I know I'm not the only 1 who knows people who practise this.)
My husband knew, of course, and a few other close friends who I felt I could trust. My friends who'd been through this were the first to sympathise this waiting menstruum of awfulness. They understood the thing that I didn't earlier — which is that a lot of the decision making and processing over the whole thing, goes on at this stage. Some of it's hidden, some of it happens over rambling late-nighttime conversations over wine with trusted people who'll listen.
During the time in between tests and waiting for results and surgery, I firmly decided that I wanted to do the three years of global travel and business firm-sitting that my husband and I had talked about. We travelled to New Zealand for a week to enquiry a novel, we had friends visit from Japan. I finished writing a book, and we completed the start official house-sit down of our iii-twelvemonth projection to see if nosotros were going to enjoy it enough to do it total-time.
I did all of this while still knowing that I might have to put everything on hold for treatment and surgery, but refusing to sit down and expect. It's during this time that I came to completely understand i friend'due south want to renovate her kitchen while waiting for her results and another'south desire to leave a marriage and start a new relationship. Life has to go along. Or else.
And I was managing. Nosotros — my husband and I — were managing well, until ane afternoon three days after my carbon biopsy. I was still woozy from pain medication and anaesthesia when a friend called and immediately demanded, "Do you have your results yet?"
She may every bit well have smacked me with a shovel.
Before I found myself in this situation, I never would have seen this question equally a bad one. In fact, to my shame, I'd previously asked friends going through this ordeal the very same question. But hearing information technology in that moment, I realised how truly shitty a question it is.
Why? Because anyone going through this ordeal knows when they'll become their results and the minute they practice, they'll tell the people they want to, when they want to. This isn't the time for a friend or family member to be looking to alleviate their own discomfort by demanding — or even politely requesting — things motion faster, or wanting answers. This isn't the time for them at all.
My friend'due south question forced me to confront the fact I was in limbo, that I was terrified, that I had weeks until my specialist engagement when I'd hear if I had cancer and if my life would be put on hold. I went through all of this in a flash — the horrible realisation of my situation and how powerless I was to practise annihilation well-nigh it. And while all this was happening, I was having to explain to my friend that my results weren't coming in for another three weeks. And considering I beloved and treat her, I didn't tell her that she'd left me in tears for the offset fourth dimension since the lump was kickoff found.
I immediately called some other friend who'd recently gone into remission and apologised for ever asking her the same question. She forgave me with such kindness I started crying again, simply this time because I was so lucky to accept such adept people around me.
How could my concerned friend have asked me about my status in a way that would take fabricated information technology okay? I've thought about this a lot and the only appropriate answer I've come upwards with is: "Are yous okay?" If I'd said I was, and then information technology should have been left at that. If I'd wanted to talk, then listening would have been appreciated. That's information technology.
Later on in the same calendar week, I popped onto Facebook and saw a post past my husband'southward cousin nigh breast cancer. It was in the vein of, "A lot of people don't remember about how many women die from chest cancer always year, but I do, and I bet no 1 is going to share this," with a motion picture of a woman who'd visibly simply gone through chemo, holding her child.
My first thought was "Screw you." I've always hated posts like these, just in that moment I saw them for the virtue signalling crap they are. I empathise on 1 level that reposting stuff like this can be reflexive — a office of a "my friend put this up and I'll look insensitive if I don't forrad it" peer pressure — merely I assure you, anyone who forrad this kind of affair isn't doing anyone playing the cancer-event-waiting-game any favours. Just. No. I still have problem thinking kindly virtually the guy. He'southward a big-hearted person who genuinely cares about people, and then I'm certain he didn't intend on that being the issue.
So what were my results?
I don't have cancer. According to my specialist, who made a point to lean beyond his desk and requite me an emphatic lecture, I am an "extremely lucky" adult female given all the previous test results and show he'd commencement been presented with. The tone of the conversation implied that if I wasn't grateful for the giant gift I'd simply been given — something the woman who'd attended the appointment earlier me hadn't been granted — I was an idiot.
Because of my brush with cancer, I tweaked my novel before it was published in January 2020 to reverberate that atrocious showtime flake, before my grapheme'southward diagnosis. I decided that I was definitely going to commit to the three years of travel with my husband. I decided to become rid of all the unnecessary luggage from my life, and I was going to think very strongly well-nigh the linguistic communication I used from that day forwards when talking to anyone facing a life changing illness. And I was going to be grateful for the life I've been given, because equally I bodacious my specialist, I'm not an idiot.
Source: https://psiloveyou.xyz/the-question-you-should-never-ask-someone-waiting-for-cancer-results-9e0713ed3df8
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