When Someone You Love Has Cancer
A Psychological Road Map for Coping
Today I woke to an email from a young woman I worked with a few years back: Hi Karen, I’ve just been diagnosed with metastasized melanoma. My husband’s not coping too well. How can I help him?
In amongst that, she took time to ask about me, even how my work was going, pushing aside her own emotional pain and fear to consider her partner’s needs. She sounded strong and brave and optimistic.
But I felt a jag of shock, of worry — for both of them.
Cancer is a tumultuous journey. Like any serious illness, it doesn’t just affect the person at the core of it. It spreads, snakes, through families, testing partners, children, parents, siblings, friendships, anyone in its path.
A few years back, my family was in the same position. My husband, who’d had a sore back, was suddenly diagnosed with stage-four lymphoma: it was in his stomach and back with hotspots just about everywhere else. He couldn’t walk and the prognosis was bleak.
It felt like someone had taken a jackhammer to a vase in my lounge and I had to pick up all the broken glass, without bleeding all over the floor.
What to do? How to cope? How to keep the mental ghosts at bay?
