Chapter 3: Your response to diagnosis

Learning Point: You discover how you cope with the news that cancer has entered your life.
   In earlier posts you have been pondering your uniqueness and getting a picture of you whole life to this moment.  More exercises and individual examples on this theme are covered in the first two chapters of my book, Fear Not:Learning from your Cancer.
   Now we move on.  Though cancer survivors have much in common, each story is unique.  What can you learn about yourself from reviewing your cancer story?
   Today we begin with the impact of hearing your cancer diagnosis.  Ask yourself four questions:
1. Where were you?
2. Who was with you?
3. What was your first reaction?
4. What were your feelings?
   Honor this moment by reflecting on it.
   One of the biggest surprises I had in teaching this class is how differently persons reacted to the news that they have cancer.  There is no RIGHT way to respond--just YOUR way.  How did you respond the moment you heard the news?
   Consider first, the person who told you the news.  Though most of my students received the news from their doctor, the situations were as varied as--one patient who got the news over the telephone from a nurse to another patient whose doctor made a personal call to her home with the news.  Try to remember exactly what your doctor said to you.
   Whirlwinds of feelings occur for most survivors when they first receive their diagnosis.  Shock is a common response, though I have had students (usually those with a family history of cancer) who were expecting this diagnosis. "I remember thinking, now it is my turn" one man said.  "My husband looked like a deer in the headlights when he heard the news"  another student responded.
   Those of us who have experienced cancer know the truth of the myriads of feelings that are triggered with the impact of cancer diagnosis.  One of the characteristics common to many cancer patients is that they are not very expressive of their feelings.  They tend to keep deep sentiments of anger, fear and resentment to themselves.  Just as you can't deal with cancer you haven't detected, so you can't get rid of negative feelings until you recognize them.  Admit you lugubrious feelings.  Accept cancer's reality in your life.  Here is another good time to use your journal.  You don't have to burden others with all these feelings.
   Now look for insight in your response to your diagnosis.  Some of us want to know all the facts of our disease.  Others want the barest minimum.  Which describes you?
   When you are in the midst of a situation you don't have the advantage of perspective.  You are just in it.  Now you can reflect on the experience of receiving your cancer diagnosis.  Don't be hard on yourself or judge yourself in any way.  From a distance consider that experience and what you will do with it.