This the third article in a series of articles documenting a cancer journey.
As some of you know, I have been on a cancer journey for over a year now with my mother.
During this time I have experienced some support from friends and basically nothing from family members.
I have also experienced the people who say they care or understand but in reality they are just saying what people are programmed to say.
A friend of mine has been traveling a cancer journey with her husband for nearly five years. So we shared conversations and war stories.
(2025 update. I'm reposting this story in December of 2025, and my friend has since been on her own cancer journey, remission, and back to the cancer journey. This time they say she will not beat it as it is in her bones. They told her to go home and call hospice. But she refused and has been on the run this entire year. She told me one day, "If the funeral home man wants me, he has to come and find me. I'm not holding the door open for him.")
During these conservations we discovered that we have heard many of the same comments from others.
First up there is "I know what you are going through."
Well let me tell you no you don't.
Everyone's situation is different and most people do not have a clue. During this year I have found three people that can remotely truly understand what I'm going through.
They are my friend I spoke of above;
A friend who was diagnosed with cancer this year and had no clue about the chemotherapy world until the diagnosis, and a friend whose mother died this year of ovarian cancer and now his wife has it.
These three people understand. However our situations are still different and we may not fully understand each others true needs.
Another favorite comment people like to make is "Maybe you should see a doctor and get something to take the edge off."
I have heard this more than any one person should.
My response to them, is I do not need medicine but at times I need help with the errands, the doctors appointments and all of the other things that go into surviving this journey.
Once again unless you have walked in the shoes, people do not understand trying to hold a job, run to doctors that are located a 100 miles away three to five days a month, go to the grocery store, keep the yard mowed, do the banking, and all of the other things that come with life.
I do not have kids and I'm not married so at one point I had a single mom tell me that the cancer thing was no different then taking off work to run your child to football practice. Others have said that now I have an idea of what being a single parent would be like.
Well once again they are wrong and out of line.
The taking off work maybe the same, but at least if you are taking your kid to football practice you know he is not going to come home and later lose his hair and throw up.
For a while I thought I must really be surrounded by rude people. But then I was talking to my friend with the ill husband and guess what, she has had the same conversations with people regarding medication and her response was identical to mine- "I need help not pills."
One way she summed up these people is: "I created the T-shirt, wore it, washed it and wore it again. Not just bought it."
So people need to take note. Pills are not the answer for everyone. But assistance would be at times.
And trust me some of the battles that I have been forced into with doctors and their staffs would make anyone seem a little nutty.
When the left hand does not communicate with the right hand, it is the patients and the caregivers that pay the price.
In one week, we had the port surgery go wrong, followed by a bad chemo experience, followed by the drug store losing the prescription, followed by a surgeon's staff losing paperwork and then telling me that I had no authority over my mother, despite the fact I gave them the power of attorney papers. The secretary even tried to tell me what my mother's mental state was, when this woman had never even met her.
All of those events hitting one after another with no one around to help out will result in one losing their cool, regardless of medication.
My point to this tale is to try and make people stop and think and stop being a robot. Do not offer assistance to others unless you mean it.
Also do not make excuses for why you are not assisting. That's all they are, excuses, and the person doing the running does not have the time nor the patience to listen them.
Do not judge the caregiver. Not everyone handles situations the same. Some of our long time friends have now quit talking to us because I chose not to spend the night in the hospital following surgery.
Anyway, we have had a two month break from chemo but things will resume this week.
And with that will come more editions of chemotales.
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