I have observed that there are generally four ways in which people responded to learning about my cancer.\u00c2\u00a0 There are variations, and exceptions, and etc.\u00c2\u00a0 But these are some generalizations that seem to hold true most of the time.<\/p>\n
1. What their mother told them to say.<\/p>\n
which goes something like this: “I’m so sorry to hear about your diagnosis. If there is anything I can do, just let me know.”\u00c2\u00a0 Sometimes it includes a line about how their mother, uncle, friend has also survived some kind of cancer, though usually people tell you that in person.<\/p>\n
I don’t hold it against them; it is a scary topic, and they are clearly scared.\u00c2\u00a0 they would rather that it had not entered into their circle of life, but having entered they have to acknowledge it.<\/p>\n
People who say what their mother told them to say almost never visit, almost never offer any real help, and never really talk about it again.<\/p>\n
2. Honest speechlessness<\/p>\n
The most honest responses have been the ones where people say that they don’t know what to say.\u00c2\u00a0 Something like this: “i don’t know what to say. i’ve been thinking about you a lot this weekend, and i have no idea how to go about this, or what to say so i dont sound insensitive or cliche or weird. so i just wanted to tell you, “i’ve been thinking about you a lot this weekend”<\/p>\n
3. The Medical Professional<\/p>\n
This has only happened once or twice, but it comes exclusively from trained medical professionals, and it goes something like this: “Your experience with this disease is unique, and only you can know what this period of suffering has been like, but I wanted to reach out to you to express my respect and support for you.”<\/p>\n
4. The Pragmatist<\/p>\n
The pragmatist says one thing: “When can I come over and what can I bring.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I have observed that there are generally four ways in which people responded to learning about my cancer.\u00c2\u00a0 There are variations, and exceptions, and etc.\u00c2\u00a0 But these are some generalizations that seem to hold true most of the time. 1. What their mother told them to say. which goes something like this: “I’m so sorry … Continue reading Some of the ways people responded to me telling them about my cancer<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[23,27,22],"class_list":["post-20","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-backstory","tag-fear","tag-friends","tag-telling-people"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}