I am temporarily interrupting my Camino Blogs to publish in full, an article by Amit Mishra which Amit contributed to the facebook Group Cancer Survivors and Supporters. I am a member of Cancer Survivors and Supporters.
I am republishing the article in full because so many of the things that Amit talked about happened to me and to my wife Margaret.
Margaret was diagnosed with untreatable ampullary cancer on 10 July 2020. I was there when she was told that she would probably be dead by Christmas 2020. Margaret was offered but declined a Whipple’s Procedure because she preferred to have quality in the life that she would still be able to live.
Margaret started ”last gasp” chemotherapy and radiotherapy in early December 2020 and the treatment lasted until 20 January 2021.
We invited our friends to a barbecue on the 26th of January 2021 so that Margaret could say goodbye.
That was the last time that any of our friends and guests ever came to our house. No one would see Margaret after the 26th of January 2021 except away from her home in a coffee shop.
Neither Margaret nor I were ever again invited to any social functions at the homes of any of our friends.
Because Margaret did not actually die until 22 August 2023, she suffered more than 2 ½ years of Cancer Ghosting by her friends.
When Margaret died, not one of her former friends made any contact with me to express sorrow that she had died.
Her best friend Ann Ryan refused to come to Margaret’s funeral.
A formerly close friend of mine Nes Fernandez refused to come to Margaret’s funeral.
Those friends who did come to the funeral avoided me completely and I know they were there only because they signed the Condolence Book.
Not one of the people who were once our friends have made any attempt to contact me since Margaret’s death, even though I sent numerous pleas to them hoping they would respond.
What follows is the facebook group article by Amit Mishra. I have not altered or added to it in any way.
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The original of the Amit Mishra article is located: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2214852731/user/1743084855
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I am extremely grateful to Amit for highlighting a profoundly vile aspect of the cancer experience that Margaret and I had to undergo.
Of all the people in the world, Margaret was the one human being that I wanted to live.
I was so grateful that although Voluntary Assisted Death became legal in South Australia in the months when she was clearly dying, she never asked me to help her get access to it. I would have done whatever she wished, but I knew I would have great difficulty in forgiving myself if I did anything to cause her to die.
In the end though, I was forced to do the one thing that I never wanted to do.
Margaret was in extreme pain in the Intensive Care Unit.
She was still alive only because of the machines that did whatever had to be done to keep her alive.
Margaret had explicitly told me that in a situation such as this, her wish was that I should let her die.
So I instructed the doctors to turn the machinery off and the machinery said she died at 3.16 am.
The weather was heavy with rain and it was extremely windy.
I went home and the tears refused to stop.
And not one of the people who had been Margaret’s friend for decades – some for about 50 years – have made any contact with me in the 19 months that have passed since her death.
Amit’s article about cancer ghosting is important because it deals with a problem that I personally know created vast pain for Margaret and me. Margaret’s suffering from the ghosting went from the 26th of January 2021 until her death on the 22nd of August 2023. 2 years and 7 months. My suffering from the ghosting started on the 26th of January 2021 and is ongoing.
Read the article by Amit and please behave better towards your own friends and family who are diagnosed with cancer than our friends ever did.
If you love your friends and family, PLEASE do not abandon them when they are given a diagnosis of cancer. Knowing that you will die or that your loved one will die is vile enough on its own. The pain of the diagnosis becomes so much greater when those you thought were your friends and support network flee from the sight of you. When, as happened in our case, they invent a feeble excuse that they could not see Margaret because her husband – me – had been rude to them, the pain level increases dramatically to a near unbearable degree. And while the cancer ghosting was going on, Margaret outwardly pretended she did not really know what was happening.
I have never stopped missing you Margaret.
I know you are still with me, but I wish so much I could still see your face.
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The article about Cancer Ghosting will be in the next blog – Blog 205.
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