I'm Just Fine, Thank You
by Sandra Z. Bruney

Don't you just love it, when after spending millions on research and coming up several Very Expensive Drugs, they now say that an aspirin a day can help prevent breast cancer?

Of course, they need to do a lot more testing, but I'm willing to start my aspirin therapy now. Along with the Arimidex, naturally. I want to cover all the bases.

Maybe I could take it with a cup of hot chocolate, another cancer-fighting breakthrough.

Like most of you, I scan the newspaper daily to read what else they have discovered. Back in April, I read that researchers at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne, Australia, decided having a positive attitude didn't really increase your chances of survival.

In fact, they said, trying to keep a positive attitude actually put more stress on the patient.

I found early on that people expect you to have a cheery, optimistic outlook. It's almost a requirement. I tried a few times to express my doubts and fears, only to be told that THAT attitude wouldn't make me better. So, I shut up. And when people asked how I was, I said, "I'm just fine, thank you," and kept my fears and doubts to myself.

Mostly, it worked. Except at three o'clock in the morning.

The first year after treatment is almost worse than the year of treatment. That first year, you are so busy going from one treatment to another that you don't have time to think. When it's over, you start wondering if it all worked. Then you start to notice every ache and pain, every symptom real or imaginary. And if you try to tell someone, they say, "THAT attitude will make you sick all over again."

I think our nearest and dearest need to realize that we can't be chipper all the time. We need to let our fears out, even if all the reassurance they can come up with is a pat on the back and clean handkerchief. We need to be allowed to cry, and scream, and get really mad about the rotten mess we have found ourselves in, through no fault of our own or anybody else's.

If I could go back and do it over again, when people close to me asked how I felt, I'd answer, "Well, I'm bald, nauseated and scared to death. How do you think I feel?"

Strangers and acquaintances would get the standard answer of "I'm fine, thank you," because they don't need to hear about it.

But by golly, at least one person should know that it's all right to offer us a shoulder to cry on. And we need to know it's all right to cry.

And then, when we blow our noses and gasp our last hiccup, we can get on with the business of getting better without the added stress of pretending we're just fine, thank you.

The opinions expressed above are my own. Write me at sandy@cancercant.com if you have a different view or something to add.

Previous Essays
Rules for Survival
Are We Making Progress?
Breast Cancer Awareness Month
New Discoveries Bring Hope
What Cancer did for Me