How To Talk About Cancer With Your Loved Ones
There are few pieces of news that you can get from your doctor that are more frightening than a diagnosis of cancer. However, there are many people who progress through cancer and lead long, healthy lives once they have made it to remission, particularly those with Stage I and Stage II diagnoses. When you sit down and talk about this with your family, though, things can be complicated. Use the tips from this article to guide you as you talk to your relatives.
The most important thing is to be honest when talking to loved ones about your cancer diagnosis. If you have a Stage IV diagnosis, then things are going to be grim for you. You can pull through it, but you have a hard road ahead of you. Don't gloss over the difficulty of this news and put a brave face on things. It's all right if you want to do that toward the world at large, but when you do it to your closest loved ones, they will feel betrayed if they find out that you weren't forthcoming.
The reason that we were made to want relationships is that there are times when we need to extend -- and to accept -- help from other people. Your loved ones will want to help you as you go through treatment, and if your chemotherapy and radiation treatments make you ill, you will need their help. Do not try to fight through this on your own without any support from loved ones. Instead, accept their help -- you would do the same for them.
If you know that radiation therapy will make some (or all) of your hair fall out, or that chemotherapy will wreak havoc on your digestive system, then let your support system know that as well. After all, if they do not know what will be happening to you, they will not know the best ways to help you. These are things that can be uncomfortable to discuss, but to get the best help from your closest friends and relatives, you're going to have to let the curtain back a bit.
This is the worst time to isolate yourself from others. Do not keep all of your thoughts and fears to yourself; you will run the risk of sinking into a deep depression -- which is the worst thing you can do to your body when it is being ravaged by cancer. Pull in all of the encouragement you can find, from as many sources as possible. Don't worry about people thinking you're too needy, or too dramatic. Cancer is a huge bogeyman for many people; take the help that people offer you.
There are people who die after their first cancer diagnosis; however, the vast majority do not, and they move on to live healthy, long lives after they have been treated and have then gone into remission. No matter what your doctor tells you, try to stay positive and stay close by talking to your best friends and relatives when things start to turn dark.
