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“I have cancer. What's new with you?”
Bob Riter
bob@ibca.net
A few days after I was diagnosed with cancer, I received a call from the Red Cross asking if I'd give blood in an upcoming blood drive.
I was a regular blood donor, so I received these calls a couple of times a year. This time, my head nearly exploded with a thousand thoughts: Should I tell this anonymous person that I have cancer? Will she write “Bob Riter has cancer” in some computerized database? Can people with cancer give blood? Will she believe me if I tell her that I have breast cancer?
I said, “Sorry, I can't make it to the blood drive this time.”
When I hung up, I realized that I had been unable to say, “I can't give blood because I was just diagnosed with cancer.” The words “I have cancer” just seemed to get stuck in my throat.
Nearly everyone who gets diagnosed with cancer struggles saying those words at first. It's an admission that you really do have cancer and that so much in your life is suddenly different.
The first people you tell are your family and friends. That's emotional, but you know that they're somehow in this journey with you. Telling more casual acquaintances can be downright weird. People often ask, “how are you?” as a form of greeting. They expect to hear, “Fine. Yourself?”
I once responded to “how are you?” by saying, “Well, I was just diagnosed with breast cancer and I'm going to have a mastectomy next week and then a few months of chemotherapy. What's new with you?” Although his expression was priceless, I decided that wasn't the smoothest approach.
For weeks, I wrestled with what to say to whom. I'd ask myself, “How well do I know this person? Will they blabber to someone I don't want to know? Will their feelings be hurt if I don't tell them?”
No wonder I was exhausted after shopping at Wegman's. I had too many mental calculations to make when people asked, “Hi Bob. What's up with you?”
As time went by, I became more relaxed about talking about my cancer. Nearly everyone was supportive and many people stepped up and became dearer friends with me than ever before.
I did lose a few acquaintances. For whatever reason, they couldn't handle my having cancer and they gradually disappeared from my life. But they were a very small minority.
It's now ten years after my cancer diagnosis and I'm about as open about my cancer as one can be. (I'm not above offering to show my mastectomy scar during a boring dinner party).
But I still remember how the words, “I have cancer,” got stuck in my throat
when I got that call from the Red Cross.
From the Ithaca Journal, December 14, 2006.
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