What Not To Say

A phone conversation with a friend of mine.

HER

I just got an email that really pissed me off.

ME

What was it?

HER

Some friend sending me information about what I need to eliminate in my life to cure cancer.

ME

And that made you feel like she was saying the cancer was your fault. I love people like that.

HER

It also says chemo makes cancer worse and mutates cancer cells. So according to this I now have mutated mutated cells.

ME

So now it's not only your fault you got cancer but everything you've chosen to do to help yourself is also wrong. That's nice.

-Not everyone is pro-chemo. But you knew that.

HER

Yeah but it still pisses me off. Plus according to this I'm supposed to be "starving my cancer cells" by avoiding certain foods on this list here and I should have never had surgery.

ME

Is this someone I've met?

HER

Yeah. At my party.

ME

The young one?

HER

She's not that young. She's your age. She just looks really young.

ME

Really? The one who looked like she was 12? She's my age?

HER

Yup.

ME

Cool!

People are going to do stupid things. They don't know it's upsetting.

They don't know what to say to you. They want to help. They see something that says "cancer" and they think "Ooooh! Something I can do! I'll give this to 'so and so' and then I'll have done something helpful!" She cares about you. She wouldn't have sent you that if she didn't. She doesn't realize how stupid something like that can be.

HER

Yeah and everybody reacts differently to different things.

ME

Exactly. I have a friend who loves getting stuff like that.

Last year over the holidays, a cab driver was telling me about how his wife had died from cancer, and how he was now on a one-man crusade to tell everybody what to do to prevent this from happening to them. He had literature in his cab and everything. The solution according to him? Oxygen. He gave me a pamphlet and told me to make sure my friend E got this information.

The next time I saw E, I asked her if she wanted me to send her his info. She said yes. But I knew she probably would. That's how she is.

HER

Oxygen.

ME

Yes.

HER

So that's the problem. I haven't been breathing enough all these years.

ME

According to the cab driver.

HER

Didn't Michael Jackson do that? Sit in an oxygen tent every day?

ME

Probably. And he doesn't have cancer, so there's your proof. Sitting in an oxygen tent cures cancer.

-And makes you white.

HER

I'm still really pissed off.

ME

I know. But she sent it to you because she cares. She thought she was doing something helpful.

HER

Yeah, I know.

Look it even says "Make sure you send this letter to 20 people you really care about."

ME

See? You're "someone she really cares about." It didn't say send it to 20 people you really want to piss off!

HER

It just makes me SO angry!

ME

I know.

HER

When my friend was going through chemo she'd get angry really easily. Once, a neighbor came by to see her and brought her soup, and her husband knew it would set her off so he told the neighbor she wasn't up to having any visitors that day. After the neighbor left, he told my friend about it and she blew up!

ME

About what? About him not letting her friend in?

HER

No, about the soup! She hated being treated like a sick person. She yelled "Does she THINK I can't make SOUP??!!!"

ME

(At this point I burst out laughing for about five minutes!)

See, I would have brought YOU soup. Even though I didn't did I...? What did I bring you?

-I brought you ginger tea and Gatorade because you wouldn't drink your damn fluids.

HER

And ginger candy.

ME

And a sweatshirt.

HER

Oh and popsicles. I have to get more of those. And the sorbet.

ME

Thank God I didn't know your friend. I probably would have brought her soup! That's still hysterical to me.

"Does she THINK I can't make SOUP??!!!"

But see? Everybody's different. You have to know the person you're trying to help. If M showed up at your door with a bowl of soup you would not be pissed off!

HER

Hell no! I'd be like "Hello! Free food! Bring it on in!"

(pause)

I'm still reading this...

It says it's a study by John Hopkins. Like that's supposed to make this sound more impressive and "legit." How do I know that? And how do I even know which "John Hopkins?"

ME

Could be John Hopkins the motorcycle guy...

HER

Or John Hopkins the dog walker...

ME

Or John Hopkins the butcher down the street...

HER

There's so many things I'd have to get rid of if I followed everyone's advice about all the things I've done wrong, or am doing wrong, that supposedly cause cancer.

ME

Lots of people eat and do all those wrong things and they do not have cancer.

Sure, there are things everyone could do to live healthier lives but lots of people do all the "wrong things" and they're perfectly fine, so it's not as simple as that. You do what you can and what works for you.

And you do live an extremely healthy lifestyle. You always exercise, you're in great shape, you eat well, you've just switched to "non-hormone" milk...

HER

I'd have to move to Oregon and live on a farm or something to make all these people happy.

ME

You'd have to move out of the city.

HER

I'd have to live on the moon.

ME

Well. Except that the moon has no oxygen.

HER

-And I need oxygen to cure the cancer.

ME

Right. And stay white.

HER

Yeah.

ME

I'll get you a tank.

© 2007