Dashing into the grocery store, we suddenly come face to face with a friend who is undergoing another grueling round of chemo for a deadly disease. We look up, down, anywhere but in her eyes as we mumble something awkward. We cringe at the sound of our own voices. What we really want to say is, ‘Help me help you. I don't know what to say.’

http://www.uthealthleader.org/archiv...onts-0325.html

[wing]

As always, ty, Byz. My dad just had his second round of chemo, and these were good suggestions and reminders for me.

I wish you and your father well.

[madisgram]

ty, byz. what excellent suggestions. brings to mind what happened to my mother with terminal cancer. her very best friend avoided seeing my mom and when mom was not able to go out anymore it hurt her that her friend didn't come to visit. it was painful for me to see her so hurt.
on the other hand many of her friends were awesome. one friend sent her via florist what they call a" living" arrangement. each day a bulb plant would start growing and later would bloom. i thought that gesture so thoughtful. mom enjoyed to watch what the new day would bring with her plant.
at one point mom said, i wonder what her hubby-my dad-would think of her now...meaning mastectomy..i replied he would love you the same as always, mom, no matter what has happened. that was the only time she really questioned anything about her illness. she had such dignity about what she was facing, never complained tho it wouldn't have made us uncomfortable cause we loved her.
her surgeon gave me good advice also when i asked him how we could help mom. he said if she brings it up then respond. if she doesn't, don't bring up her illness. this is comparable to the article. she hadn't changed. she was just sick. so we treated her just the same as always.

[lonegael]

I was told that my father would visit a terminally ill friend and he and this firend would simply sit for the entire visit. Not talking, just sit. Yet the wife said that these visits woulld be the ones that comforted the dying man the most. Why? Don't know. He knew my father would come. He wouldn't be expected to play host or talk. Maybe that was it. My father wouldn't play false cheery and all that. Again, I don't know, it might not be as comforting to someone else. For this man, it was a blessing simply to know that his friend was there and would keep coming to visit for as long as it took.

[Perna]

It is strange how we forget that the person is themselves and think the illness has changed who they are to us, how we should relate to them. I was just on vacation and talking to two women around the pool where we were staying and in the middle of the conversation it changed to health care and the woman started in on her cancer treatment and she has stage 4 breast cancer! But it wasn't awkward, we kept talking about health care and how it could be done better and about out lives. If I had known she was that ill before we started talking, I probably would have gone back inside, not knowing how to talk to her. But since we were having a great conversation when her illness came into it, that made it easy to just incorporate all we were talking about.