Making "Cancer" Friends: Both A Blessing And A Curse



When I was first diagnosed with cancer, I didn't tell anyone. I was going through so much at the time, and apart of me just wanted to pretend like it wasn't real. And I had done that for what seems like a long time. Deep down, I knew I needed to act, but I felt like maybe I had done something to deserve all the bad things that were happening in my life, and with that I embraced the fact that I was going to die. I accepted it, and there was nothing that was going to stop me from living my life on my terms.

Eventually, I came to my senses, and I talked options with my doctor. I'm not going to bore you with the same old story of the cancer like I tend to do with every other article I've written on this blog.  Today, I wanted to talk about something different. 

Back in August of 2016, I met a girl named Kelsey Hart. She had been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. I can't go into details about her situation because I'm trying to respect her privacy, but I met her at the hospital. We were both waiting on radiation when she just started asking me a bunch of questions. We became close in the next few weeks. Each of us fighting our own battle, not just in the cancer, but within ourselves.

You see, she was my very first cancer friend. She and I have a bond that I don't really tend to share with anyone else in my life. She gets me on a level that not many other people do, and not because I'm misunderstood, or I see things differently than most people, but because I'm sick. She understands things about my life than no one else does.

The truth is that having cancer friends is both a blessing and a curse. It is such a settling feeling to be able to have people in your life that understand what you're going through. When you meet someone who is just as sick as you are, there are just so many things that you can say, and talk about that you can't with people who are not sick. 

I mean, when my hair started falling from chemo, I had a major breakdown, and I had people telling me that it was just hair. Kelsey though, she understood that it wasn't. It was another thing on the long list of things that cancer had begun to take from me. It took my emotions. It took my appetite.  It took my ability to work all the hours I had before. It took my ability to drive myself around all the time. It took my energy. It took so many of my friends, in the sense that everyone treats you differently when they know you're sick. 

When you have friends who are going through the same thing, you can talk about dying without them trying to drift the conversation. You can talk about the fact that you might not make it out alive. You can talk about a will, and what if's. You can describe in vivid detail what you imagine your death would look like. You can be angry at the world. You can be depressed. You can be sad, and they won't judge you for not being positive. 

These are the things I longed for in a friend. Someone who could just understand. With having cancer friends though, comes the ability to lose people. There have been quite a few people I met on my journey to cancer that I am extremely grateful to have met. Some are doing good, in remission. Some are still in treatment, but some have passed away. 

That is the heartbreak of having friends with cancer. You lose them.And it will never not suck. They understand. They don't judge, but they die. This is both a blessing a curse.


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