Cancer Ghosting

[AshleyYesayan]

Has anyone else lost friends and family they thought were close because of cancer? I saw this and thought others might be able to relate ❤️Cancer Ghosting: The Traumatic Side Effect No One Warns You About 

[Paul71]

I found the opposite.  Since my diagnosis in March 2020 I have been overwhelmed with support.  I have always been open and honest about my cancer, I have never tried to cover it up.  I guess it’s a time when find out who truely are your best friends in life.

[AshleyYesayan]

So happy to hear this ☺️  And yes cancer definitely makes clear who your real friends are 

[bajis]

Hi Ashley,

I have certainly heard of friends ghosting. My oral cancer surgery was roughly a month ago. I did announce this news to my friends and neighbors. I also told them that my wife and I don't foresee any help... but will certainly reach out if needed. And we also told them that it would be hard for us to "keep everyone informed" on a regular basis. Everyone of my friends understood and were supportive. They are ready to help... but I don't have a specific request (yet!)

On the other hand, my neighbor told me her story when she went through breast cancer a year ago. She apparently told just 4 of her close friends - they are the mothers of her daughter's friends and have known them for almost 14 years. But a couple of them completely cut off all the ties. The funny thing is, the neighbor didn't even have a request for them - it was more of an information. Like you said, you will find out who your real friends are when you're down.

Hope all goes well for you.
- Balaji

[Paul198]

A friend of mine has trouble relating emotionally whereas in the spheres he is interested in he expert and has heaps to say.   He has had friends who have died of cancer, and I guess you could say he's experienced in watching friends go through terminal cancer.  However, when I was diagnosed with cancer,  he was a font of knowledge that did not apply to me and my malignancy at all.  His great habit was to minimise the stages I was going through because he'd been (vicariously) through it all before.  And he was gung ho that extreme treatments that extended life did not degrade quality of life. Which is contrary to what my oncologist was telling me.  I settled on a regime that might extend my life with few or no side effects.  Mine is one of the kinder cancers.  I think he thought I was weak.  He did volunteer where to go to get cheap hospital parking, but that information was wrong - I used a different part of the hospital.   I put up with all this to help him feel important and needed until one day he diminished, as an act of kindness, the import of aspects fo my condition.  I'd had enough so for the next 2 months I ghosted this poor man who was an expert in watching people die of cancer but who had never had it himself.   He's not a doctor.  Was I mean to him?  Later I said sorry to him for me being an arsehole. 

[OzStu]

I lost a few friends, and didn't have a lot to start with.   For a year or maybe a bit longer prior to my diagnosis, my son had been getting harder and harder to get together with.  Long story, but, when I told him of my diagnosis,  he stopped ignoring my txts etc for a while, and we spoke regularly on phone, and he said he as sorry he'd been so absent recently.  It wasn't just me,  he was ghosting my entire family.   Anyway, all of a sudden he stopped answering my txts for no apparent reason.  This was right in the middle of my treatment.......8 rounds of cisplatin, 35 radiation treatments, head and neck.   Pretty horrific treatment.   So I get pissed off at him and sent him a txt letting him have it, about how he was ignoring his grandmother, uncle, aunty, cousins, and me.  He came back with the lamest bullshit excuses you ever heard......and I told him so.   Then he told me to piss off and I'm not his family anymore.  Said I'm not welcome to contact him anymore.   And I haven't seen him or heard from him since.  The xmas after that,  I got up the courage to just go to his house, to deliver an xmas present.   I didn't even get tot he front door and he yelled out from inside to piss off or he'll call the cops.   So I left, and the police rang me later and told me that if I contact him again he will go to magistrates court to put a restraining order on me.

I raised him, my only son, only child.  His mother got seriously mentally ill when he was 5 years old....and wound up being confined to mental institutions again and again for years.    She's still an outpatient 30 years later.   He's been the person I care about more then anything in life.   I'm gutted.   Not a day goes by when I don't mourn him, and I cry on the inside every day.   What's happened between us has caused me more pain and fear then my cancer. 

There were other people who ghosted me, and I figure it's because you become a liability and someone who might ask for big favors or help, and people can't be bothered so they make themselves scarce to avoid telling you the truth......you don't matter, and they couldn't care less about  your problems.    But I only mourn my Son.