Who should be told? Why? How? When?
This is one of the many questions that you ask yourself fairly quickly: should I tell people or not? First, you take a look at those who are already aware for various reasons, often more circumstantial than deliberate, then those who will inevitably have to be told unless you want to hide it from them and appear increasingly odd in future conversations. You weigh up the pros and cons, and end up essentially informing your family, the people you work with on various projects, your closest friends, and, as far as I'm concerned, I decided to leave the others alone, which, by boomerang, also guaranteed me a certain peace of mind.
There is no need to burden others with the weight of our own worries when it is not necessary. There is also no need to introduce, or even maintain, a level of pathos that only distracts you from the real objective: getting better, healing. For those who really love you, it is an additional mental burden, something that depresses them in fits and starts, that catches up with them in the course of a conversation, a news report, a reading. For others, it can lead them to consider you “out of order”, like something that has been left on the side of the road because it is no longer in working order, rusty or obsolete. I have experienced this with two or three people for whom cancer = condemned = useless = no more news. In short, don't feel forgotten if we have been talking to each other since January 20, 2023, and I haven't updated you. This is in no way a value judgment on our relationship; it can be just as important not to tell someone as it is to tell him or her.
By not announcing it to the world, I was also able to avoid going on and on about the hospital, the illness, the treatment, and to avoid tipping over into the state of “professional sick person”, as the nature of my illness did not require it. Nor did I want to receive 5,000 FB messages of “Cheer up, hang in there, and blah blah blah” even if sincerely meant, even if sent with the best intentions in the world. I didn't feel like complaining or having people complain for me, or being given contradictory nutritional advices that were less than 25% useful... I had a feeling that the few useful pieces of advice would be drowned out by a mix of good intentions and DIY medicine. In short, I didn't need any of that.
Nor courage, in the end: I don't consider that “getting through” my cancer (if I can put it that way) required any bravery on my part. I just needed a focus, a clear objective, a little organization and the discreet support of those who knew.
Once again, all of this applies to my cancer versus myself. With a more aggressive cancer or a different personality, I might have reacted differently. Going through this is an intimate experience that cannot be judged or evaluated from the outside, something you realize when you are going through it.
During my long waits in various rooms of the same name, I sometimes did not appreciate the reactions of other patients, who were too selfish, too theatrical or too submissive, but I never said anything, never showed impatience or aggressiveness towards these people, because ultimately I was experiencing this ordeal with a certain level of comfort, medically, financially (here I will just say that my treatment cost me next to nothing), and even “pathologically”, I did not feel entitled to judge or comment on the reactions of others.
Alone nevertheless
You are on your own, facing a huge challenge that you neither wanted nor anticipated, facing a mountain of appointments and administrative procedures, facing a disruption of your daily life, facing more or less important choices to be made quickly. You have more or less options, help, pain or not, in a few words, everyone does what they can.
No "Judgement" for once.
