Communication is hard. Communicating about cancer comes with a response burden that needs a warning label.

No matter how squared away you think you are about sharing a diagnosis, it is always harder than you think. When I was diagnosed, initially it looked like surgery may be the only treatment I needed. I worked with other humans in person in my business. I had to tell several people and it isn’t my style to be cagey about it. The first person I told broke down into tears and I had to comfort her for an hour. I knew that was not sustainable, either emotionally or timewise. So, I switched to humor. I started telling people I was getting an upgrade… that was medically necessary. By the time they stopped chuckling about the upgrade and connected the dots to medically necessary, we had short circuited the fear/sadness response. They got it. Asked a question or two and we moved on. What can you reframe in the telling to reduce the response burden on yourself?

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