Carla,
You summarized the feeling of so many, so well. I have heard that remark
many times "just forget about it and live your life". I did not want to
talk about it for a long time and now I find myself talking about it to
many people. Not only do I feel the need to discuss it for my own healing
but I realize there are many people out there in the same boat who I might
be able to help.
I was standing outside at the community centre when Donna and I were doing
the craft show a few weeks ago. A lady came out wearing a comfort heart.
(They are pewter hearts with a thumb impression in them sold by the breast
cancer society. You are supposed to rub your thumb in the impression. It
feels very nice to the touch and is comforting). So I asked her about it
and told her I had one at home. That was all it took to begin a discussion.
We often never know how we touch the lives of others but I hope I touched
her life in a positive way.
I am slowly educating my family by sharing the mol forum with them. I will
tell them how so and so is doing or a new treatment that has come out for a
certain type of cancer. I find, by teaching them a little at a time, and
not overwhelming them, they are learning and becoming more understanding. I
think it helps them as well to know that we are, by no means, the only
family embarked on this journey.
Now I've rambled on. Just "Thank You" for all the wonderful insights you
have been sharing lately. It has enable all of us to grow.
Christine
At 10:28 PM 19/12/98 -0500, you wrote:
>I am very glad that you found a way to open the visit for discussion
>Kathy... I think that all too often, people think that a person with cancer
>doesn't want to discuss it, when in reality they do want to discuss it,
>but, with someone who understands..
>
>I know that no one in my family understood/understands to this day..
>Initially my friends and family didn't want to discuss it and so they
>wouldn't listen to me at all.. Then if I discussed it in front of them,
>they cut me off with a very wonderful remark..like; why don't you just
>forget about it and live your life.. yeah, thats what you need to do... just
>go on as if it never happened... Yet, only healing that I found was through
>talking about it.. The problem is that often those who are around you cannot
>face it themselves and so they pass their problems on to you and you already
>have enough...
>
>You know, my husband came home almost every other day excited to tell me
>that someone he talked to, had a friend or relative who had cancer and was
>still living after 2, 5 or 10 years.. I would ask "what type of cancer" and
>he would say what does that matter? Then I hurt even worse because I
>realized that he couldn't/wouldn't listen to what I had been through enough
>to be educated at all.. So all my talking was basically in vain... Now he
>gets real excited to say.. they had lung cancer and I say "what type?", he
>still doesn't get it..
>
>So take someone like me.. I don't want to talk about it according to my
>parents.. but that is because they don't want to talk about it... I don't
>need to talk about it according to my husband, but that is because he
>doesn't want to learn about it.. My friends want the old Carla back for the
>most part and I can't give them someone that wasn't real anyway.. that was
>part of the problem... I hadn't been myself for a long time...
>Sorry for rattling on, but the "just" of this was to say that if you listen
>to your inner spirit.. as you did.. you will find that there are people
>behind doors, waiting for hearts such as yours... God Bless you and much
>love, Carla
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