On support groups

I was invited to attend the first session of a support group for cancer patients, survivors and care givers last week. We met at a church after their services Sunday morning. I was a little ambivalent about going to it for a couple of reasons. Support groups and group therapy just sound a lot alike to me and I have had a life time of group therapy already. Don't need/want more. Thank you very much! I also wasn't sure if the group would have a Christian bent and I wanted neither to intrude on nor participate in a "Christian" experience. But, I am also a believer in trying things if I'm not sure about something so I went. My friend picked me up and we drove to the church. Services were over before we arrived and people had moved to the social hall for cookies and coffee. Our group met in a small room off the big social hall. About 20 people crowded into this room and for privacy reasons I will neither identify the church, the group leader's name or any of the names of the other participants. Really there isn't much to reveal. We did the introduction thing where everyone states his/her name, what cancer he/she has or had or if he/she is a caregiver. I think I might have been the youngest person in the room except for the facilitator. I sure felt like it. The participants had a variety of different cancers and some were long time cancer survivors. It seemed the reason most of them came was to connect with other cancer patients. The basic purpose for this first meeting was to see what it was the participants wanted out of the group, when they wanted to meet and who they wanted to be there. That was the first sign to me that maybe I shouldn't be there. One of the participants made a point of saying that he was a first service attendee and so if most of the people didn't recognize him it was because of that and not because he had just wandered in off the street. The thing is, he probably wasn't making a comment because he didn't recognize me but because he didn't recognize a number of other people there, but a point was made. He wanted people to know that he belonged and that the general community didn't. This raised the question of whether they wanted "outsiders" to be allowed to attend this group. The facilitator was really very good and pointed out that it was up to the group but that the idea of opening up to the community had been talked about by people she had already talked to. But it was agreed that the first couple of meetings would be just for those who already knew about it or were there that day. Then the format of the meeting was discussed. Some people wanted a kind of free form open meeting, some wanted a little structure. Some wanted us all to meet together but the general consensus was that male and female cancer patients had different ways of dealing with their issues and care givers had different needs. This would mean maybe meeting together for a few minutes at the beginning of each meeting, then breaking up into various groups and then meeting all together at the end. Which was when one of the participants volunteered that the group should open and close with a prayer. Now, since this group is meeting at a church and everyone except me was a parishioner, I had no problem with this. In fact, I think that it is totally appropriate. If you can't pray at your own church, where the heck can you pray? One of the participants volunteered that if the group were open to the general public it might make it uncomfortable for non-Christians or even some other non-parishioners if there were a prayer. Then it was decided that maybe praying could be done after the meeting had officially ended. At that point I was pretty sure I wasn't going to be coming back. But as I thought about it afterwards there was another reason I don't want to go back and it has to do with something I wrote about before.

I am a very suggestible person. If you tell me about an ache or pain one day, chances are the next day I will have it. A friend told me her husband had gout and for days afterward I was sure I had gout. Miraculously, I seem to have recovered from it. Maybe cancer trumps gout? But as we sat there at the table and each person recounted their cancer experience I heard a lot of stuff I really didn't want to know about. Many of these people had either not gotten rid of their cancer, had gotten it back or gotten more different kinds of cancer. I really don't want to hear about that. And they were eager to discuss it. I don't want to know about that. I am now considered cancer free and I have no desire to dwell in those other possibilities. It kind of scared me listening to their stories. When it was my turn to introduce myself I felt like there were a million things I could have said but my basic statement was that I am in chemo now, I'm getting better and I expect to stay well. I even said maybe I am a little shallow thinking that way but that is the way I think. I realized just a little while ago that I had sort of shut down my memory of what went on in the group because I didn't want to think about all the possibilities they had presented. And once I have written this I will try to forget it again. The thing is, I am perfectly happy to accept the support my friends, neighbors and colleagues have offered. I like a friendly word when I run into people and I enjoy going out for coffee (sorry, herbal tea) with friends. But I am not interested in hearing about a lot of people's cancer experiences because they aren't mine and I don't want to have other possibilities thrown at me. And recently some people have offered to make appointments for me to visit with non-traditional health practitioners and want to give me advice from "experts" in non-traditional therapies. I am just not interested. I have already stated that I am basing my treatment and recovery on my friend Christa's experiences and for me that should do it. I am almost ready to bury my head in the sand and stay hidden in my room if that is what I have to do to stay away from people who are obviously eager to help me. I can't say I don't need anyone's help because obviously that isn't true. Many friends have helped me in many wonderful ways. But I am not into commiserating, feeling sorry for myself or hearing cancer stories about other people. If it is a horror story I absolutely do not want to hear it and if it is a heart warming story I don't need to hear it. I'm good as we say. I want to just talk about ordinary stuff, hear about other people's ordinary lives (or exciting lives, that is good too). But I don't want to dwell on cancer. As a friend said and I may have said it here before, I have cancer but it doesn't have me. And actually, according to my oncologist, I don't have cancer so it for sure doesn't have me. And I am determined to keep it that way.