August 13, 2008

• (Note:  I love all my friends who’ve stepped into the fray this past week. You are gems. This isn’t written about you. This is written about those people who suck off my drama and who I wouldn’t have darken my doorstep in the ‘good days’. Now it’s all about them. Again.)

  Okay, here’s a list of things that bug me (and by extension ALL cancer patients, because I speak on behalf of them, doncha know):

  Things Not To Do:

  1. If we say we don’t need another meal cooked for us — we don’t. The freezer is stocked, the dog has put on 8 kilos and you cook like shit anyway. We appreciate the gesture, know you want to help — but fuck off with your crap lasagna.
  2. Under no circumstances, are you ‘coming over on Friday to clean my house’. WTF?  I am sorry if my personal hygiene offends you, or that you can see dust bunnies on my bathroom floor — but tough tits. This family cleans its own house, maybe badly, but I am actually quite offended that you think this helps me. All this does is make me feel inadequate. So again with the fuck off.
  3. When you ask if I am alright, and I say ‘okay’, then that’s the end of the conversation. I don’t necessarily want to spill my guts each and every time we talk —  about mortality, what it’s like to have the Big C, and (use Big Sad Voice here) How. I. Am. Coping.  Unless you have a pipeline to the future, shut up and smile and accept my lie when I choose to tell it.
  4. Don’t call just to talk. Most of the time I am trying to sleep. And furthermore, long-winded weepy messages on the answering machine WAKE ME UP and make me wish you had cancer not me. So there.
  5. On the above topic, don’t get your knickers in a knot because (gasp) you called 3 days ago and I haven’t returned your call. Maybe I am recovering from all the fucking telephone calls. Maybe I am puking. Maybe I am sleeping. Whatever. I still like you. Or will, unless you make an unreturned phone call an issue.

  This What To Do:

  1. Leave food (if you insist) outside my door and then text me or my hub to tell me it’s there. Don’t come in for a cup of tea. Really, don’t. You didn’t come in before I was sick, why would you want to now? My energy lasts 10 minutes, but my impulses last longer and must be overridden.
  2. If you DO come in. Leave soon. Don’t make me ask you. It’s embarrassing and rude and feels ungrateful.
  3. Tell me you will take my kids to and from school, or for a bit without me asking. It’s really hard to feel like I can’t look after them, and I worry. They also demand a lot of emotion from me lately, and I get worn out. Don’t wait for me to ask — just tell me when you’ll return them.
  4. Email me. I can answer email when I choose and in the middle of the night, it’s a good friend.
  5. Hug me. Cancer isn’t contagious. I need the bodily contact to remind myself that.

   

   

  • 7:09 pm
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