Karen Crowley's most recent Beacon column ^[1] titled "Live Like You Are Living" struck a chord with me.

In the column, she discussed how some cancer patients meet their disease head on, how they want to live each day to their fullest and not give in, and how they're admired for doing so.

She countered this with the position that it's also okay to feel sorry for yourself, and that we may not always want to, or be able to, put our best foot forward.

As I read the column, it caused me to think about the per­cep­tions and ex­pec­ta­tions we deal with as cancer patients. These ex­pec­ta­tions and per­cep­tions may be our own, or may be those of others, such as family, friends, coworkers, patients, or med­i­cal staff.

The more I thought about this, as absurd as it may sound, the more I realized there are numerous ways in which having cancer and dealing with these expectations and perceptions can send us on guilt trips.

Perhaps "guilt" isn't the most accurate word to use in all cases.  Depending on the situation, sometimes it may be a case of feeling uncomfortable or defensive, or perhaps feeling selfish or sorry for yourself.

I find myself quite often feeling guilty about not doing what I, or others, expect of me.  Days when I don't eat as well as I should, or skip my exercising, and am not doing everything I can to battle my disease.  Or days like Karen described, where you just want to curl up and take the day off.  But then I feel guilty for feeling this way, when in fact I have it pretty good, all things considered, particularly compared to so many others.

Another situation I encounter occurs when interacting with other cancer patients.  Invariably, when you meet other patients, you go through the litany of typical questions:  what type of cancer do you have, how are you currently doing, what type of treatment have you had, what kind of issues have you experienced, etc.

In my case, I've responded well to treatment, so I basically say treatment wasn't too bad and I'm currently in remission.  I've learned to generally not go into too much detail, or reveal how good I'm doing until I hear how the other person is doing.  If the other person is not doing well and describes all the problems they've had, I start feeling guilty for doing so well given what they've experienced.  I've even had it worse, where the other person actually exhibits resentment toward me, and I find myself feeling like I need to apologize for my well-being.

I think this relates to why I don't attend support groups.  I've been asked to attend, and was told it would be good to have someone there who was successfully treated and doing well, because it would provide hope for others.  Perhaps it would, but I think it would also be another situation where I'd be asking myself why I'm doing so well while all these others are not. And unfortunately, this ends up making me feel like I'm being selfish and only considering my own needs and not those of the others.

Then there's the situation I've only experienced once, when someone actually questioned whether I really had cancer given how active I am and that I sure didn't look like I had cancer.  I felt like telling the person I would have to be a masochist to be driving back and forth to Ann Arbor for chemo every other week if I didn't have cancer.  Talk about being on the defensive.

The other issue of note is dealing with the guilt I feel about the burden I may be on my family, particularly my wife.  So far, the impact hasn't been too significant.  Basically just the trips back and forth for treatment, the fun with dexamethasone ^[2] (Decadron), and a couple missed vacations.  However, I worry about what the fu­ture holds, and the plans we make that may never happen.

I admit that a lot of this is probably a by-product of my personality, because I tend to take a lot of this per­son­al­ly, I tend to set high standards for myself, and I have a lot of empathy for those that are suffering.  But to one degree or another, I expect a lot of cancer patients have had some of these experiences, or sim­i­lar ones.

Therefore, doesn't it seem to raise the question as to how our psyche can be so messed up that we feel guilty because we have cancer?  After all, we are the victims, the ones with the life-threatening disease, and not the antagonist in this battle.

Peace, and live for a cure.