What the hell do you SAY to that?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

So I’m coming home from work kinda late after a major grocery shopping spree, and I see my neighbor entering his place. We exchange greetings. I ask him how he’s doing. Been better, he says. Why, I ask, you sick like the rest of us? (My wife and I have had the worst cold the last couple of weeks.) Well, he replies, I just found out tonight I’ve got colon cancer.

So of course, I’m dumbfounded. I mean, you ask somebody you don’t know all that well how they’re doing, you don’t expect, “I just found out tonight I’ve got colon cancer.” At least, I don’t. In my head, of course, I’ve got some train of thought like “Holy fucking shit!” but my mouth ain’t working so well. I made my lame attempt to offer something meaningful, some appropriate show of sympathy, but I’m standing there on my stoop, my arms full of bags of groceries, feeling like a total ass because I made a crack about being sick…it just completely floored me. I got the door half-open, my cat is about to escape so I’m totally distracted…really, really awkward moment. I did my best to think on my feet, but didn’t perform so well, in my estimation. So after a surreal good-night I shlump into my house to tell the wife the news.

Man, I feel like crap. I really wish I had something better to say or do for the guy. Once I was in my place, I considered going over and offering to talk, but I didn’t know if that would be appreciated or not. I figured he might be telling his fiancee (yeah, they’re supposed to get married in a few weeks…good grief!) and the two of them could use a little space at the moment.

Truth is, I have no idea what I should do now. I mean, how serious is it? What if he’s fucking terminal or something? What, do I send flowers? Give him a pat on the back like I know what the fuck he’s going through? Jeezus, how life can suck sometimes. I just feel so bad for the guy, and his fiancee, who also lives next door. I mean, I just can’t imagine.

I know, not the most eloquent little passage, but I’m not the most eloquent of people, as my toungue-tied performance on the stoop clearly demonstrated. I also have no clue about, er, crisis protocol, for lack of a better term. I just don’t know. What’s appropriate right now? I mean, if he’s terminal, flowers are going to seem pretty morbid. A get-well card certainly won’t be much of a pick-me-up. Fuck! It’s just so…I don’t know, rotten!

Gah, I give up.

2

Sometimes people ask for pity in unusual ways.
I think the flowers might be a good idea.

3

Well, if he’s going to be doing the chemo and radiation and possibly surgery, you can offer to help his wife with the yard work or heavy stuff that he would normally be doing around the house. Haul his garbage cans down to the road for her, cut the grass, clean the gutters, whatever.

My mom died from colon cancer, but if it’s caught early enough, he can make a complete recovery. Maybe you or your wife can talk to his wife and see if he wants to talk to someone about it.

Good luck. You’ll do the right thing.

4

I don’t think the neighbor was necessarily asking for pity. He may have been still sort of trying to figure out what he felt.

When I was told that my tumor had been malignant, I spent the twenty minutes or so driving home in a bit of shock (no one had expected it to be). After that, I was fine. I never felt life-threatened or frightened or much of anything but inconvenienced (by the radiation and mild chemo), and if I mentioned it casually to anyone, it certainly wasn’t asking for pity! I didn’t want any because I didn’t need any! I tried to be sensitive to the feelings of others, but the fact was, it wasn’t a big deal to me and it was hard to remember that it might be a big deal to them. (This was back in 1995, and yes, I’m fine, thank you)

Colon cancer can have a very favorable prognosis. The neighbor may have been in shock, he may be like I was and fairly insouciant about the whole thing, he may have been figuring it was best to get the “announcement” out of the way quickly, he may be a person whose courage operates by presenting as very matter of fact about things (my step-mother just found out that one lymph node out of 13 taken in a lumpectomy last Friday was cancerous - she is one of these), or he may have wanted some sympathy. But I would place any bets on the latter.

5

wouldn’t place any bets. :smack: and this after previewing!

6

I second the offer to help suggestion. But mean it.

After my brother started chemo, a neighbor came over to tell him how great he looked since he lost weight. My brother told him that chemo does that to a person, and then went on to explain about his cancer.

The neighbor said to my brother, well, if you need anything, just let me know. My brother said, you mean like helping my wife with yard work? The neighbor slapped my brother on the back, laughed and walked away. :rolleyes:

Offer specific things or times. ie, I’m gardening this weekend, do you want me to pull weeds? Or, better yet, just do it. Offers to help are rarely taken up. Offers of specific help are hard to say no to.

7

Went through this with my sister-in-law recently.

“Hey, Susan, how you doing?” I asked.
“Well…” she said, “It seems I have breast cancer.”

She had literally found this out about two minutes before I greeted her, and I have to admit that for a second or two I just stood there with my mouth open. You CAN’T just know what to say in response to that. I just said, “Listen, I have no idea what I can do to help, but if you think of ANYTHING useful, let me know.” All she ever asked of me was to drive her daughter to a few tennis lessons that coincided with her radiation therapy.

Your neighbor is probably a bit shell-shocked just now, and is unlikely to be able to think of any way you could help, but if you can do a few little things to keep the day-to-day stuff running smoothly, I am sure he will appreciate it. Best wishes to you all.

8

How about invite them over for dinner? Or better yet…cook up dinner and take it to them. Their minds probably aren’t on household stuff right now.

Absolutely a great idea to do some yard work or outside things.

And probably the best thing is just to let them know you are concerned and want to help in any way you can.

9

Get a nice card (pretty picture, blank inside), write down your offer of help and sympathy, get nice gift (something neutral but nice), leave in letterbox.
Call around the day after in person and repeat offer of support.

It lets him know that you’re there if he needs you, and gives him a little space to deal with all this stuff (which has got to be a shock).

10

Definitely offer to help out…I know chemo absolutely wiped me out … everything was just so much work, even getting up to get a drink of water.

You could take advantage of the new freezer to microwave plastic casserole dishes, the smaller 2 quart ones and with a little effort make a great NONcasserole dinner for 2…

cook noodles, rice, scalloped potatoes, assorted roast veggies[onion, garlic, carrots, celery, potatoes] and put 2 generous servings in the bottom. on top of that put fully cooked items like roasted skin on boneless chicken breasts with a nice marinade [the wishbone sesame ginger teryaki is great] or miniature individual meatloaf, or loin lamb chops, or pork chops…steak is hard to do this with as reheating can be problematic unless they like beef welldone. in addition to the meat, 2 portions of texas toast or an equivalent is good=) Essentially it is all the meal components, but just compiled in a way to make it easier to serve out without being a casserole.

offer to come in and sit with them if they are going to be doig a lot of recouperating at home, just having someone get a glass of ice water and open/close the blinds, change the temperature of the room is wonderful, or a helping hand walking to the can.

11

Don’t beat yourself up. If he just found out about it (as in, he was just getting home from the diagnosis), he may have just need to tell somebody, and you were the first person he saw. Or, he may be just needing to keep saying it out loud to get a grip on it. The whole “acceptance” thing. I’m sure in his state he wasn’t paying attention or agonizing over your reaction to his news, so stop fretting over it.

The ideas here are good – offer your assistance while he’s undergoing treatment. I’m not so sure flowers to a guy at home are an appropriate response though - they seem more like a get well gesture in a hospital setting. A card showing your support might be better, but only you can decide on what you feel comfortable with depending on what your relationship with the couple is.

12

I don’t think you messed up. It’s like Queen Bee just said, about needing to tell somebody.

When I found out that I had SLE, the first person besides me to know it was the driver of the PAT 500 bus that took me home to Shadyside.

He asked ‘How are you today?’ and I replied ‘I got lupus.’

Sometimes you have to say it out loud to get your own head around it, and that might be what your neighbor did. I do think the other posters here are right though. What you should do is make that sincere offer to help him and his wife, and then follow through with it. And remember, sympathy does not have to mean pity. Helping them out with yard work or something shows that you are sympathetic, and it’s something that really can benefit both of them.

13

OK.

I want to say thanks to one and all for giving me such good advice. Especially you survivors in the group! Hey, maybe I can share with him some stories of “somebody I knew about” who beat the disease. When the time comes. Maybe he will find that helpful.

Right after I read the first posts, I called my wife (who is home today) and asked her if she could pick up/order some flowers. We kinda brainstormed on what to put in a card, pretty much on the lines of what y’all suggested: So sorry to hear that! Please don’t be a stranger, if you need help, don’t hesitate to ask, and we will do what we can. We live in townhouses that are part of a condo association, so there’s not much yardwork or any of that to do, as the association hires folks for all that. Summer’s coming, so there’s little chance of snow, and even that is dealt with (though not always as soon as we like, hence our often shoveling ourselves to get our cars into the street). I’m not sure what really I would have to offer him except “moral support”, but I suppose things may come up.

Despite my background (I worked in a skin carcinogenesis lab for a while, and many carcinomas share some basic similarities, even when you’re talking about squamous epidermal epithelia vs. pseudostratified columnar intestinal epithelia, for instance), I have little feel for what he might be dealing with clinically. I imagine if he just found out, they probably don’t have a prognosis yet. Maybe I’m wrong, but I figure, as young as he is, he must have had some symptomatic complaint that had the docs poking around in there before he was diagnosed. Colonoscopies and biopsies aren’t at all routine for folks in their thirties, are they? (If so, I’m not being a vigilant patient!) I mean, they don’t go looking around for suspicious polyps annually until well into or past middle age right?

Gosh, I hope it’s not advanced. Well, nothing I can do but what I’ve done, I suppose. We’ll see what happens. Again, thank you all for your helpful words. If you have more to share, I’m all eyes. :slight_smile: