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Hi. Yes I find this is how most people are - they don’t mention cancer and your treatment unless you bring it up first. I found this with my primary diagnosis and also I’ve recently been diagnosed with secondaries. Over Christmas I’ve met up with lots of friends and family who I don’t see that often and I find most tend to ask how I am but that’s just the standard polite greeting that you say to people when you first meet. Of course the anticipated answer is ‘Fine. How are you?’. I think it’s partly because people aren’t sure what to say but also I think most people wait for you to bring it up in conversation as they don’t want to upset you or say the wrong thing. Personally I don’t always want to talk about cancer so that suits me fine. What I do is if I want to talk about it I just bring it up in conversation. I tend to be quite factual and straightforward about it and if I bring it up early on then it kind of breaks the ice x
Hi Lucy
You’re right in your understanding of your guests’ silence - people don’t know what to say and don’t want to rock the boat either with probing questions so the elephant hangs about, some aware of it, some oblivious. Part seems to me to be because of our abject fear of the mere idea of cancer, part is self-preservation (not wanting to have to think about uncomfortable things) and part is a wish to protect you, give you some time off. For me, the most upsetting part is a fourth: the belief that once treatment is finished, that’s it. Illness gone.
I think it’s only when you’ve been through it or lived with someone going through it that you begin to appreciate just how pernicious cancer is in affecting every aspect of your life. Things can never go back to exactly as they were and it’s hurtful when people can’t see this. When I first joined this forum, I was shocked at comments about losing friends, finding out who your real friends are etc. I now understand and see that a gentle cull is necessary where friends have repeatedly failed to respond to my efforts to re-educate them. This includes one who even took me to a chemo session and sat with me.
Like Pawsome, I try to bring the subject up if visitors haven’t asked how I am - a flippant comment about my rampant chemo curls is an easy way in to a simple comment about how I had no idea that there isn’t an aspect of my life that hasn’t been affected. Of course, you need some specific examples and hormone therapy is equipping me with many! However, like you I was unprepared for the sense of exclusion or irrelevance that silence brought. I think we need to ‘fight back’ against these assumptions that lie around cancer. It doesn’t need to dominate conversation but it’s not a subject to be avoided. I hope you have better luck with your next visitors! Meantime, remember, it’s not you; it’s them! X