A rural woman’s breast cancer journal

In the book Dancing in Limbo, it says,

“Under ordinary circumstances, it is easy to have unrealistic expectations of a partner, friends, or family member. Once cancer enters our lives, we feel vulnerable, and want unconditional understanding and support. However, if this support was not an element of our relationships before cancer, it is unlikely to develop after cancer.”

Two of the people who were closest to me (and two of the strongest personalities) that were a part of my daily life before I got cancer are completely absent from my life now. They did not make it through the diagnosis and treatment with me.   As I went through the months of surgery, treatment, recovery, and learning “life after cancer,” and needed someone to talk to, these two people that I would have called often were no longer speaking to me.  If I was confused about how to deal with life after cancer, I was completely baffled about why I lost these two relationships at the same time.  I thought I needed a foundation of all of my family and friends - which included these two people – to help ground my life, while the rest of my world felt like the rug had been pulled out from under my feet. 

I was wrong.  I have come this far without them. And other people who were not a part of my daily life before have become an important part of it now.

In a section of the book called, “There are no perfect families,” it says:

“Because we also have high and often unrealistic expectations of our families of origin, there is the potential for feeling devastated.  Dorothy tells a sad story about her sister, on whom she relied and whom she had expected to help her through her illness.  ‘. . . .I thought she would be my biggest support, but it just became too much for her and she never came to see me and barely phoned me.  That was upsetting for me. It was like being deserted.’”

I called a friend in another state that has lived with cancer for a few years and she told me she had a similar experience. One of the strongest women in her life, one of her closest friends, intended to go with her to her medical appointments, and they discovered it wasn’t going to work.  They butted heads and their friendship was in jeopardy.  They had to change the expectations they had of each other or forget it.

“Cancer seems to bring out magical thinking in spades. Not only do we place impossible expectations of protection on our partners, we also expect our families of origin to respond in ways that belong to fantasy. Because family is family, we usually expect even more from family members than we do from anyone else.  And they expect more from themselves.”