The OMG People

The things people will say to someone who has cancer. “You look good”. They say this to him because they heard that he has cancer and they were expecting him to look like crap. It always makes me wonder if later they are going to say, "You look like hell”.

Or they begin to tell you a story about someone else who had cancer and halfway into the story you can tell that they suddenly realized that the story they are telling does NOT have a happy ending-- and it turns out that the neighbor, coworker or uncle died of cancer and probably the same kind of cancer that your loved one has and you can see the look on their face—even as words are coming out of their mouth—and they are trying to get out of the story they are telling to you. They desperately want to redirect themselves so they can make this story about something else but you can see that what they began with—some hope of consolation, “he has the same thing.” Or “His chemo wasn’t so bad” is in fact a story that ends with “and then he died.”

That is one version of the OMG (Oh My God) people. Goes like this: “Oh my God, cancer. I’m so sorry and I’ll pray for you. What does that do? Pray that his illness goes away and some other sucker with no praying friends gets to keep theirs? Or the OMG you’ll have such a hard time as a caregiver, or the OMG he’s gonna be really, really sick you know but you can do it. They give you that big attta girl after they devastate you with their sympathy and alarm.

People will tell you all kinds of “How it’s gonna be” stories and then you find out that their sister had breast cancer or their boss had lung cancer or lymphoma or some other kind of cancer and some other kind of chemo. But, my God, the truth is that until this began I thought cancer was cancer and that chemo was chemo. I have learned so much so fast. What a school this is and man, the tuition is a bitch.