When you hear that you have cancer one of the things that go through your head is how do I tell my family and friends? I was really hesitant to tell some friends that I knew way back when about the big c because I did not want their attitude and feelings towards me to change. Is that weird? Like if I take a trip back to where I grew up will my old friends look at me different or treat me different because I had cancer? Will people who were not my friends be nice to me now just because of the cancer diagnosis? Will guys I dated before be like wow I am glad we are not together anymore because she had cancer? Will they look at the “girls” like they did before they betrayed me and got cancer or will they avoid looking at all?
I found it was a careful balancing act trying to decide who to tell and who not to. Once I did decide to tell I had to decide how much and how I wanted to tell it. I was working in sales for a set group of customers and I was not planning on telling them because the majority of them were men and I did not want to talk about the “girls” with them. My boss decided to take it upon himself to tell my customers about the breast cancer without my consent. I was fuming mad. What gave him the right to talk to anyone about my breast cancer? If he had testicular or prostate cancer I would not go talk about it; of course I would not have done it if there was a less personal type of cancer diagnosis.
All of a sudden I was facing the reality of having to discuss my cancer with people who I had not even met face to face. It was very hard for me until I talked to a customer whose wife had gone through breast cancer about 10 years ago. He was talking to me about how hard she fought it, the types of surgeries she had gone through and how her personal upbeat spirit helped her through it. Just being newly diagnosed I was not feeling very upbeat and really was not wanting to hear about how I should be upbeat.