Building Support Systems 101

This morning I decided to go for walk and while on my journey I met a man. This man was dressed in casual clothing with a cancer ribbon on his jacket collar, accompanied by a perplexing smile. I believe in a different setting his smile might have been considered friendly but in this one it was hiding a intense secret. As we began our journey we broke the silence with a brief conversation about the weather but I knew that there was something deeper and more intimate that he wanted to share. So I began to question him about his cancer diagnosis and how it had affected his life. He smiled and said “this diagnosis hasn’t really changed me; it has changed my perspective of those whom I had previously thought were close to me”.

                This was a powerful and deep statement. I did not need to have an explanation for the position he now held because I had experienced it myself. In fact this statement took me mentally back five months ago when I was first diagnosed with cancer. It was a Friday morning and I was sitting at the doctor’s office listening to him tell me about a tumor he had found in my intestine. This was a shocking revelation for me and now I was expected to drive home as if  everything was normal. This was the longest in the hardest drive home I had ever taken. It took everything in my power to muster up enough strength to turn the steering wheel and shift the gears on my 6 speed Volkswagen Passat. When I finally made it home the first thing I wanted to do was reach out to my family.  I called them and nervously reported the news to them with the secret hope that they would say “you’ll be okay, we’ll be there for you”. This phrase was never uttered.

                After this brief historical flashback, I slowly began to focus back on my walking companion. He was in the mist of recalling his own personal cancer story. He told me that when he delivered the news to his love ones “they begin to tell him” everyone’s going through something, we all have problems of our own”. He turned to me with tears running down his unshaven face and declared that looking back, this response hurt him more than any treatment program he would have to go through. He stated that it was at this point that he knew he was completely alone and that this lack of support would retard many of the medical decisions he would have to make. He said “some mornings I wake up and feel like just staying in the bed, with the covers over my head and it is the lack of support that fuels these feelings”. He went on to say that our support groups are not preassembled and that just because someone shares the same DNA with you doesn’t mean that that they have compassion for you.       

He told me that he learned this lesson the evening after his dreadful doctor’s appointment. He said it was during this time when one of his friends spoke to him over the phone. He recalled being reluctant to share his misfortune however his desire for comfort over took his need for privacy. This friend not only listen she asked for his next appointment date and who was going to take him. To his surprise she showed up on the day of his appointment, ready to transport him. She said “I knew your pride wouldn’t allow you to ask and I felt like you needed a friend to be there, I’ll take you to this appointment, Pam will take you to the next one, Amy and Sally will you get to these” she declared as she pointed to a makeshift appointment book she had organized the day before “this should get you through the next couple of weeks, until your family is able to make it here”.

                It was at this moment that the man stopped walking, looked at me and acknowledged “I knew that my cancer was not a priority for my family and that any promises they had made me were only superficial pleasantries they used to get me off of the phone”.  We came to a crossroad, he went one way and I the other. Lucky for me this interaction did not leave me without knowledge and to repay him for his information, I gave him a strong handshake followed by a manly “take care”.

             As I sit in my room, I realize what his conversation was all about. He was telling me that people in general, are preoccupied with their own issues and this selfishness does not allow them to extend any real compassion or sacrifice for others. It is the kindness of strangers that will allow you to survive this and reaching out to familiar faces will only disappoint you in the end.  The moral of the story is “your life’s emergency many times will only be considered an urgent care episode to others”