A few years after miraculously surviving stage 4 non-Hodgkins lymphoma, I felt a strong desire to give back to others like many grateful cancer survivors do. I decided to begin working with couples and families dealing with cancer. I wanted to be able to utilize my own terrifying and transformative experience."
And so now I am privileged to being working with couples and families facing the challenges of cancer, the struggles of chemo, the complexities of care, and the heartbreak of loss. Over the next months, I want to share some brief vignettes of therapy with you. So I will take you behind closed doors and show you a glimpse of one of my cases which will be thoroughly fictionalized to protect my clients' confidentiality.
I invite you to tell your stories back and together we'll start a dialogue about cancer and healing, about love and about loss. I believe grieving alone last forever; grieving together heals. I share these stories in the hopes you'll be less alone with yours.
#1
Joan and Robert have been clients of mine for years in couples therapy. And in just the past six months, she's been diagnosed with kidney cancer with quite a good prognosis and then six weeks ago he was diagnosed with what will very likely be terminal lung cancer. He's been completely eviscerated by surgery, chemo and radiation. But today they were chipper. Robert had a break from chemo and was already feeling less sick and his jaunty upbeat personality had returned.
"I know the statistics on this aren't looking so good for me," he said, "But remember statistics don't describe individuals. Look at you. It said in your book that you had a less than 25% chance of surviving and here you are. Why not me, too? He gave me a cheerful wink and smile.
I smiled back, trying to hide my wince. As I understood his disease, I knew he had literally no chance for cure and it was a matter of 6 months to a year. He and I weren't in the same boat. Despite my terrible prognosis, I always knew I had a shot at a complete cure . He doesn't. But he's not asking for my opinion and I'm not a physician and miracles do happen. I realized suddenly that I really didn't know whether it would be helpful to explore their underlying doubts and fears or simply go with their effort to stay positive. I was one who absolutely wanted to know my exact odds and without any spin on it. But it didn't mean that that was good for them.
I've known Robert through the years as quite a feisty and strong willed guy. I guessed he wasn't really ready to open to his real situation. "I said cheerfully, "Well, if anyone can beat this thing, I would bet on you." In other words, I punted.
"Me too," chimed in Joan, "He's a tough sonofabitch. You and I both know that Dr T."
My smile felt like a grimace.
