Coming Out of the Cancer Closet
Dan Shapiro
Thinking of coming out of the cancer closet?
You may have a good reason. Maybe you're on that proverbial third date, the one when you start telling the truth about yourself- that you lived with your parents until you were thirty and if you could get away with it, you'd still bring your laundry over to Mom's. Maybe you're at work and need to explain why you need Friday off for that date with General Electric's latest CT Scanner. Or maybe it's getting close to time to get naked, and either you're going to have to tell them that your scars are the result of a shark attack, or come clean about the biopsies.
You know the drill. "Yeah," you say, head back, casually, "I know you've thought my baldness was Euro-sheik, a way to challenge the skin-heads and basketball stars who dominate the baldness world." Then you look them straight in the eye.
"This is not your average shave job. I did not ablate my locks with creams, potions, lotions, balms, tinctures, or spreads. Nor were there buzzing trimmers, scissors, or box cutters near my sensitive skin. I have surfed the toxic express to bulb smoothness. Yes, this clean head is the product of a 'chemo cut.'"
Add a little Latin or the name of the discoverer of the disease, a few details about tumor size or blood markers, and viola-you're out of the closet.
You've just jumped hurdle number one-getting the words into the air. Deep breath. Pat yourself on the back, you deserve it. But don't rest long.
People want you tell them to smell the roses, live life fully. Those truisms are tired, so I'd encourage you to develop some original material. Tell people something they haven't heard. "Cancer has taught me that masturbation is good."
Here's hurdle number two. For the next three seconds, you have to live through their raw reaction. Because across from you, in that stillness, your victim's autonomic nervous system is flooding with adrenaline and corticosteroids. There's usually a pause. The words hang still. Maybe your listener's face wrinkles up funny. Perhaps there's a quivering chin, flexing jaw muscles.
In this raw moment we see people's true reaction, and it can be painful. The worst one is when their eyes shoot open wide and their head jars backwards. Because, who wants to see their mortality etched in someone else's countenance? Not me.
It passes quickly as they realize how carefully we're watching. Take a breath. Hurdle three is coming fast and it's even harder.
The questions: What's the diagnosis? How did they find it? How hard is the treatment? Are you getting chemotherapy? What is chemotherapy, anyway? Did anyone in your family have cancer? Are you smoking marijuana? Is it painful? Can you get a doctor's note that says that you can smoke marijuana now? Are you getting radiation? Can I have your Spiderman comic book collection? Will you share your marijuana? The questions always feel like someone has turned an airport search light on you-blazing brightness and heat.
Most people don't ask their real question. "Are you going to die?" They think you know though, as if along with cancer came omniscience. If asked I'd say, "Yes, in all likelihood."
As part of this process I've learned that we all are, unfortunately, a carbon-based life form with an unexplainable flaw. We die. It's a bummer, but I'm trying to get used to the idea.
Fourth set of hurdles. Now comes coping with the barrage of information about other people who have had cancer. I don't understand why people want to tell me about their relatives, but they do. It doesn't matter how well you know the statistics about your own disease, humans are wired to embrace stories. Stories lodge themselves in our consciousness. So, if your friend tells you about Uncle Morty, who developed a totally different cancer than yours, earlobe cancer lets say, and died suddenly and horribly in an accident involving chemotherapy, fishing lures, and lightning, the sad truth is that you may turn the story over and over and over at 3:00 in the morning.
We live in a strange culture. We have social rules for birthdays, anniversaries, retirement parties, hellos, and goodbyes. But, our culture has no social rules for how to respond when someone you like tells you they have cancer.
When the stories are over, you're in the wisdom-declaring phase. This is where other people look to you for life guidance. You've been somewhere special after all, and if you have any pithy knowledge, this is a good time to share.
People want you tell them to smell the roses, live life fully.
Those truisms are tired, so I'd encourage you to develop some original material. Tell people something they haven't heard. "Cancer has taught me that masturbation is good."
If there's something you dislike (maybe a food, sport, or activity), this is a good time to damn it.
"Can you believe it? My doctor said that watching reality TV caused my cancer."
We live in a strange culture. We have social rules for birthdays, anniversaries, retirement parties, hellos, and goodbyes. But, our culture has no social rules for how to respond when someone you like tells you they have cancer.
Try to see beyond the superficial chatter to the person's heart. What do they really want me to know? That they have hope for me? That they're sorry this is happening? That they'll be there if the shit hits the fan?
Some people will say stupid things. They might tell you, "You're lucky because it could have been worse." (And inevitably, they're right-instead of chemotherapy my treatment could have required a lobotomy.)
Atheists may hear prayers said for them, the pious may be subjected to questioning about a God who allows this sort of thing to happen. I encourage you to be patient.
I spent five years, my early twenties, fighting cancer- lots of chemo, radiation, surgeries, and a bone marrow transplant. In the beginning, I didn't tell people. I didn't want to watch their necks crane forward, the whites visible all the way around their eyes. And I won't lie to you, the first times you come out it's battering. But it gets easier each time.
Sometimes coming out pays off-the friend who says, "You'll beat it man, no worries." Or, "we are going to deal with this together." Then there is the spontaneous embrace.
What feels good is different for everyone, but generally, getting rid of a secret is a great way to feel better. It gets so much easier when we've got other people in our corner, and the only way to get them there is to jump the hurdles.
Tell your truth. Come on out.
Dan Shapiro, PhD is an Associate Professor at the University of Arizona. He is the author of Mom's Marijuana: Life, Love and Beating the Odds, a book about having cancer in his early 20's, and Delivering Doctor Amelia: The Story of a Gifted Young Obstetrician's Mistake and the Psychologist Who Helped Her. For more visit www.danshapiro.org
You may have a good reason. Maybe you're on that proverbial third date, the one when you start telling the truth about yourself- that you lived with your parents until you were thirty and if you could get away with it, you'd still bring your laundry over to Mom's. Maybe you're at work and need to explain why you need Friday off for that date with General Electric's latest CT Scanner. Or maybe it's getting close to time to get naked, and either you're going to have to tell them that your scars are the result of a shark attack, or come clean about the biopsies.
You know the drill. "Yeah," you say, head back, casually, "I know you've thought my baldness was Euro-sheik, a way to challenge the skin-heads and basketball stars who dominate the baldness world." Then you look them straight in the eye.
"This is not your average shave job. I did not ablate my locks with creams, potions, lotions, balms, tinctures, or spreads. Nor were there buzzing trimmers, scissors, or box cutters near my sensitive skin. I have surfed the toxic express to bulb smoothness. Yes, this clean head is the product of a 'chemo cut.'"
Add a little Latin or the name of the discoverer of the disease, a few details about tumor size or blood markers, and viola-you're out of the closet.
You've just jumped hurdle number one-getting the words into the air. Deep breath. Pat yourself on the back, you deserve it. But don't rest long.
People want you tell them to smell the roses, live life fully. Those truisms are tired, so I'd encourage you to develop some original material. Tell people something they haven't heard. "Cancer has taught me that masturbation is good."
Here's hurdle number two. For the next three seconds, you have to live through their raw reaction. Because across from you, in that stillness, your victim's autonomic nervous system is flooding with adrenaline and corticosteroids. There's usually a pause. The words hang still. Maybe your listener's face wrinkles up funny. Perhaps there's a quivering chin, flexing jaw muscles.
In this raw moment we see people's true reaction, and it can be painful. The worst one is when their eyes shoot open wide and their head jars backwards. Because, who wants to see their mortality etched in someone else's countenance? Not me.
It passes quickly as they realize how carefully we're watching. Take a breath. Hurdle three is coming fast and it's even harder.
The questions: What's the diagnosis? How did they find it? How hard is the treatment? Are you getting chemotherapy? What is chemotherapy, anyway? Did anyone in your family have cancer? Are you smoking marijuana? Is it painful? Can you get a doctor's note that says that you can smoke marijuana now? Are you getting radiation? Can I have your Spiderman comic book collection? Will you share your marijuana? The questions always feel like someone has turned an airport search light on you-blazing brightness and heat.
Most people don't ask their real question. "Are you going to die?" They think you know though, as if along with cancer came omniscience. If asked I'd say, "Yes, in all likelihood."
As part of this process I've learned that we all are, unfortunately, a carbon-based life form with an unexplainable flaw. We die. It's a bummer, but I'm trying to get used to the idea.
Fourth set of hurdles. Now comes coping with the barrage of information about other people who have had cancer. I don't understand why people want to tell me about their relatives, but they do. It doesn't matter how well you know the statistics about your own disease, humans are wired to embrace stories. Stories lodge themselves in our consciousness. So, if your friend tells you about Uncle Morty, who developed a totally different cancer than yours, earlobe cancer lets say, and died suddenly and horribly in an accident involving chemotherapy, fishing lures, and lightning, the sad truth is that you may turn the story over and over and over at 3:00 in the morning.
We live in a strange culture. We have social rules for birthdays, anniversaries, retirement parties, hellos, and goodbyes. But, our culture has no social rules for how to respond when someone you like tells you they have cancer.
When the stories are over, you're in the wisdom-declaring phase. This is where other people look to you for life guidance. You've been somewhere special after all, and if you have any pithy knowledge, this is a good time to share.
People want you tell them to smell the roses, live life fully.
Those truisms are tired, so I'd encourage you to develop some original material. Tell people something they haven't heard. "Cancer has taught me that masturbation is good."
If there's something you dislike (maybe a food, sport, or activity), this is a good time to damn it.
"Can you believe it? My doctor said that watching reality TV caused my cancer."
We live in a strange culture. We have social rules for birthdays, anniversaries, retirement parties, hellos, and goodbyes. But, our culture has no social rules for how to respond when someone you like tells you they have cancer.
Try to see beyond the superficial chatter to the person's heart. What do they really want me to know? That they have hope for me? That they're sorry this is happening? That they'll be there if the shit hits the fan?
Some people will say stupid things. They might tell you, "You're lucky because it could have been worse." (And inevitably, they're right-instead of chemotherapy my treatment could have required a lobotomy.)
Atheists may hear prayers said for them, the pious may be subjected to questioning about a God who allows this sort of thing to happen. I encourage you to be patient.
I spent five years, my early twenties, fighting cancer- lots of chemo, radiation, surgeries, and a bone marrow transplant. In the beginning, I didn't tell people. I didn't want to watch their necks crane forward, the whites visible all the way around their eyes. And I won't lie to you, the first times you come out it's battering. But it gets easier each time.
Sometimes coming out pays off-the friend who says, "You'll beat it man, no worries." Or, "we are going to deal with this together." Then there is the spontaneous embrace.
What feels good is different for everyone, but generally, getting rid of a secret is a great way to feel better. It gets so much easier when we've got other people in our corner, and the only way to get them there is to jump the hurdles.
Tell your truth. Come on out.
Dan Shapiro, PhD is an Associate Professor at the University of Arizona. He is the author of Mom's Marijuana: Life, Love and Beating the Odds, a book about having cancer in his early 20's, and Delivering Doctor Amelia: The Story of a Gifted Young Obstetrician's Mistake and the Psychologist Who Helped Her. For more visit www.danshapiro.org
