Did someone you know just get diagnosed with cancer? Is one of your friends going through treatment, and you just don’t know how to talk about it? In this post I dive into what cancer patients need from their friends when we are fighting cancer. I also reference two amazing resources available to you.
I watched a webinar recently put on by two amazing organizations, b-present and Elephants and Tea, that was titled “I Just Heard My Friend Has Cancer, What Do I Do?” Before diving into what I learned at this webinar and what I’ve learned in all my years as a cancer patient and survivor, I want to just give a quick shoutout to both of those fantastic organizations.
b-present offers an abundance of education for caretakers, families, and friends of newly diagnosed young adult cancer patients. If you fall into that category and are new to the “cancer world,” I highly recommend that you take a look at their education programs and blog. You will be so happy that you did. They even have a Supporter Roadmap!
Elephants and Tea is an online magazine that was founded by the wonderful mother and brother of a four-time cancer survivor! Their content is written by fellow members of the cancer community telling their own personal stories in their own true words! How incredible is that? They have an inspiring lineup of blog posts and articles from cancer patients, survivors, and caretakers, all motivational and educational in their own ways. And on top of that, they have numerous Digital Programs to help bring together the young adult cancer community!
Which brings me to the main point of this post (assuming you haven’t been too tempted to jump-ship early to check out those other cool resources).
If one of your friends has been diagnosed with cancer, what is your first reaction? Is it to smother them with love and affection? Is it to run away because you’re worried they’re going to die? Is it to leave them alone because they have enough to deal with?
I’ll give you a hint – none of those are the right answer.
First and foremost, above all else, what we as cancer patients want is for you to…
Tip #1: Be present
Guys – seriously. The rest of this post revolves around this one piece of advice, and I’ll explain why.
Going through cancer is not a simple, black-and-white event. It is confusing. It is confusing for us, and that’s going to make it confusing for you too. We won’t always know what we want or what we need. It is new to us too!
That is exactly why we need as much “normalcy” as possible. I lost quite a few friends during my chemotherapy treatments when I was in high school, and then again during my bone marrow transplant in college, probably because they had no idea how to handle the diagnosis. People that I thought were so important to me just vanished. Gone. What they didn’t realize is that it would have meant the world to me to just have them show up – even if that just meant sending me a text message or giving me a call once in a while.
Which is a good segway into my next piece of advice..
Tip #2: Keep including us in stuff
Don’t just disappear. We need you now more than ever. Just think – if you don’t know what to do or how to handle the diagnosis, how the heck do you think a person newly diagnosed with cancer will feel? Just stick around. Even if you don’t know what to say. Come see us in the hospital. FaceTime us and let us know what’s been going on at school. Even just watching a Netflix show at the same time as us and texting us about it lets us know you still care! Having cancer is already very isolating. We need our friends to mentally take us out of the “cancer realm” every once in a while.
Tip #3: Get rid of any expectations
My next piece of advice is – don’t be offended if we don’t feel like talking or seeing you some days. I said this would be confusing, didn’t I? I know I just mentioned that we want to be included, but sometimes treatment just leaves us running on empty with no energy at all. If we don’t pick up that FaceTime, or we don’t answer that text, it’s not because we didn’t get it. We saw it, and we’re so happy that you thought of us. Chances are we read the message and fell asleep or the doctors came in the room before we could respond. But I can promise you that the phone call or that text message means the world to us.
It is important to know that not responding, or wanting to just stay quiet instead of socializing when you visit, is not anything personal toward you. It probably just means that we aren’t feeling up to it. But trust me – just having you there means everything.
Tip #4: You don’t need to try to have all of the answers
When we do actually have enough energy to talk, and we need to vent, something I’ll say is that you don’t need to have all the answers for us. If we say “holy crap this round of chemo is making me more nauseous than the last one did,” we don’t necessarily need you to go and google all of these anti-nausea medications that we can try. Sometimes we just need to talk about what’s going on. And if that’s the case – we just need you to listen.
Tip #5: Don’t act like we’re sick
What the heck does that mean?? Are you not supposed to ask how your friend is doing? About all of the progress that they’ve worked so hard for? No don’t worry, that’s not what I mean. In fact, it is generally really nice to be asked about how we are doing, the accomplishments we’ve made, and the things that are going on with treatment.
What I mean by “don’t act like we’re sick,” is just this: When treatments start, we are so focused on learning our medications, how we are mentally going to get to the next day, and sometimes we’re just focused on breathing through the nausea. We either feel like crap or we don’t. Either way, we don’t want to see the “man, I’m so sorry you’re sick” look. It is so much more pleasant if you act like you’re hanging out with an old friend, because that’s exactly what you’re doing!
I know this is a lot of back and forth. It sounds like one day you’ll be able to talk to your friend, and the next day they might not respond. One day they’ll act normal and the next day they won’t. Welcome to the world of cancer, where things change by the minute. It takes work to deal with a friend being diagnosed. But think about what the patient is going through – their whole world just got turned upside down in a matter of seconds when they heard that diagnosis. They need you now more than ever.
I’d like to tell you a personal story about my transplant, with the hope that it can clear some of this up.
My wife Shelby was in her senior year of college when I relapsed. She had only been my girlfriend for about nine months when she had to get that phone call. Knowing that cancer was not what she signed on for when she started dating me, I told her that she was free to go and offered her a way out, and to not look back.
Instead, do you want to know what she did? She was present.
She was at the hospital after her classes almost every day that I was in transplant. She came and lived part time with my family while I was recovering. She was there for me. She never left my side except for class and work. And she never treated me any differently. She never once looked at me like I was sick, even when I knew I looked like death. She kept me laughing.
And when I didn’t feel like laughing, I’d cry. Or I’d stare at the wall (if you read my other blog posts you’d know I used to love staring at the wall when I was inpatient). But no matter what, Shelby would be there. And that is just what I needed from her.
And she lost a lot of friends during this process. She had friends that just didn’t understand why she was spending all of her free time with me instead of all the typical college activities. And I am sure if you choose to be there for your friend that was just diagnosed, you might lose friends too. People that just don’t understand. They won’t know how to talk about it with you, and they might even get annoyed that they don’t see you as often because you’re taking trips to the hospital on Friday nights.
But what you need to realize is that every single time you go to the hospital, just like my wife did for me, you’re giving them hope. You’re giving them something to get excited about. You’re giving them a reason to actually look forward to the future rather than just dread their next treatment.
So if you take away anything at all from this post, when all else fails, just be there. Be there for your friend because they are still the same friend that they were before the diagnosis. They still like to talk about the same things and they still care about you and want you around. Don’t vanish.
As always guys, please feel free to reach out to me on my contact page if you have any questions, tips of your own, topics you would like to see covered, or just feel like chatting to someone that’s been through it. I am always here for you.
-Alex
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Featured image is one of my own!