Talking About Cancer: Knowledge, Friendship, And Support

The following is a guest post by David Haas who has been blogging about cancer survival and has some thoughts that match much of my path through dealing with this disease.  Everyone needs to find their way to tolerate this disease and work their way through it.  I started this blog as a bit of a release for me and the thoughts that bounce around my head about tolerating cancer and it is some of my therapy.

Organizations like the American Cancer Society have several programs and services to help cancer patients understand their illness, manage their treatment, and get assistance. These resources make it a little easier for patients to find information, gain perspective, and receive emotional support at a time when they often feel lost and alone.

Cancer Survivor Networks

Whether someone chooses a community support group or an online survivors network, camaraderie through cancer is invaluable. All cancer patients need support, whether they are facing breast surgery, rare mesothelioma, or any other cancer. Survivor networks celebrate life, and each other, by sharing knowledge, resources, and personal stories.

Talking about cancer and writing about it are extremely important practices. Although many cancers can now be treated or cured if discovered early, any cancer diagnosis sets off an emotional crisis. For some, cancer is the hardest, most frightening challenge of their life.

There is no right or wrong way to deal with cancer, but talking about it can help tremendously. Most support systems include a patient’s doctor, spouse, family, friends and, maybe, colleagues. But nothing beats talking about cancer with other survivors -- people who have endured the experience themselves, and survived.

Benefits Of Talking About Cancer

According to Macmillan Cancer Support a London cancer support community, talking about cancer gives people a measure of control. Discussing their fears and frustrations with cancer survivors helps them gain a better understanding of their own situation.

Support groups help patients find answers and make decisions based on knowledge from people who have “been there.” Sometimes, talking about a particular worry keeps it from growing bigger than it really is. Most of all, talking creates a bond between people who care, appreciate, and support one another.

Benefits Of Writing About Cancer

Words can be healing, whether they are spoken or written. For some people, writing about cancer is easier than talking about it in person. This is one of the reasons online support networks are so popular today.

Writing about emotions is therapeutic, and cancer patients can utilize this therapy through discussion boards, chat rooms, blog posts, email, and more. Internet support groups allow people to communicate their feelings any time of day or night. They also allow anonymity, which is a more comfortable option for many people.

However cancer patients choose to express their feelings and experiences, the important thing is that they do so. Talking about their illness, journaling about it, and participating in cancer survivor networks are excellent ways to cope with illness, develop friendships, and support one another.

Why me?

Everyone who suffers a significant tragedy in their life has asked themselves this question.  It doesn't matter if it is the death of a loved one, a financial setback, the loss of a job, or, as in my case, it is receiving an incurable cancer diagnosis.

Harold Kushner, a conservative rabbi addressed this question directly in his book "When Bad Things Happen to Good People" as his response to his own child's death at the age of 14.  I fight with this question continually because it seems so unfair that something so bad happened to me and my loved ones.

I like to think I am a good person and I don't feel I have done anything obviously bad enough to warrant this sentence.  I am a Christian and have lived my life in what I believe to be a mostly Godly fashion although I know I frequently fall short.  Most people believe that if you live your life in a righteous fashion, you will be rewarded.  Televangelists say this all the time, implying that giving them your money will result in you receiving rewards back N-fold (they never tell you that N is 0).

I have had people tell me that this is just part of God's plan.  Oh really?  Is it God's plan that I should suffer and that my wife and kids should suffer?  Is it God's plan that I must retain a job that provides health insurance or drain all my retirement funds in a few short years, condemning my wife to a life of poverty after I die?  Of course, I don't expect to lose my job but staying employed is always something to be concerned about in these difficult financial times.

I have had people tell me that God would not give me this disease if I were not strong enough to handle it.  That is just telling me that I need to tough it out.  That is telling me that, if I do feel weak, that it is just my own fault for feeling weak and I am letting God down by not bucking up.  If a person has suffered a tragedy, this is not something that you should tell them.  They need your support, not to be told that they need to buckle down and deal with it.

I am also a man of science and I understand how these things happen.  Every single day, 400 Trillion cells are replaced in your body.  Each cell has DNA that the cell has to copy and your DNA has approximately 3 billion base pairs that must be duplicated.  That means that, every day, you have about one trillion, trillion copies that need to be made exactly.

When a mistake is made in these copies, sometimes it occurs in a place that doesn't matter (or it may matter when combined with another mutation).  Sometimes it is significant enough that the cell cannot survive and that cell naturally dies off.  Every once in a while, the error is significant and the cell is viable but your bodies own anti-body system detects the error and kills it off.  Another option is that the error turns out to be useful and allows the species to improve and advance.  The final option is mine.  The cells are viable, undetectable to my body as bad cells, and, yet, disastrous.

Could God have prevented this error?  Yup.  Certainly.  But to do so, he would have needed to remove a significant portion of the beauty that is evolution and violate those rules he set in motion.  There are always things God could have done but he created this world with an amazing system of physics and biology and I don't believe he messes with this wonderful system he has put in motion.

Breaking the rules would make it impossible for the scientific method to work.  It would mean that it is impossible for us to discover the rules that govern the world in which we live.   I love rules (anyone who knows me, knows this to be true) and I believe that the God I believe in and the world I live in follow the same rules.

Bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people.  That is not God punishing us, that is just part of the random chance of life that sucks.  One person is 5 minutes late in the morning and misses a flight while another arrives 5 minutes early and gets on that flight as a standby passenger.  If the flight goes down, does that mean God loves the first person and is punishing the second person (and all of his family and loved ones)?

If you have suffered a tragedy, I HIGHLY recommend reading Kushner's book.  Don't believe that you are being punished.  Don't believe that you must be strong enough to handle this.  It is just fine to be weak and scream at God.  At some point you are going to need to accept your fate and rise up to it but don't let anyone make you feel bad for any pain you feel or need to express