cancer support

[monalisa12]

How do you support someone with cancer? what do you say or not say

Difficult to generalise.
some people want to talk about their worries, concerns, treatment, etc, and others just don't want to talk about it at all.

Depends, too, where they are on their journey.
What treatment they are having.
Very much on the odds of them recovering or if they have been told it is terminal.

Then depends if you lve near and if you can offer practical support.

It really is not something that anyone can answer for another person.

yes but what I do not understand is that if the person with C does not wish to talk about it to people and the people do not know they have it, then how are they going to explain themselves when they deteriorate and it becomes obvious they are ill.

As it has been pointed out to me that if you do not tell anyone in the early stages of the C then you are treated as 'normal' and you do not constantly get asked how are you etc,

My friend has C and has told me EVERYTHING including the prognosis and she does not want any other friends to know. Sooner or later they will have to know or they will twig when things deteriorate or the treatment makes her unwell. What is she going to say then?

Does it matter? She has the right to deal with her diagnosis/ prognosis as she wishes. If you are her friend you listen if she wants to talk, help her laugh and cry, keep her confidences and be guided by her. You do NOT try to persuade her out of her comfort zone. She will handle things as and when it becomes necessary.

What TheGreyLady said.
As, and when she feels other people will notice anyway, then she will make decisions about telling more people.

At the moment, she doesn't want people to treat her "as a person who is ill with cancer" - she is at a time when she wants people not to know so she can go about her day without people sympathising with her and without people asking her about it all the time. That's fine (as it is equally fine when people do want people to know).

It is her call how she deals with it, until it gets to a stage where it is impacting upon other people.

Yes and my reason for posting this was to find out how I as a person deals with it because for some reason although she does not want many people to know and treat her as a person ill with cancer etc, she is happy for me to know and I have decided not. to ask her how she is but to wait for her to tell me but I do not want her to think that because I am not asking I do not care. She is letting me know what happens when she goes for her tests and what happens when she receives whatever treatment they give her.

You can use the word cancer. It's not Voldermort

Why have you decided not to ask how she is?

If she doesn't want to tell people then that's her choice. As you say, if/when things deteriorate then people will realise something is wrong and presumably she will deal with that when necessary.

Depending on her prognosis and treatment she may well never need to tell people. I know someone who kept her cancer secret from all of her friends. She had surgery and radiotherapy, but not chemotherapy. I think with chemo it would be much harder to hide, but I'm sure some people manage it if they don't get many side effects. I don't really understand her decision, but it's none of my business really.