Well, I've been a busy bee over the past several days. In fact, for someone who is jobless, I have been quite chokka with meetings. Enter the next phase of the cancer journey - building a roadmap into the future post treatment.
As with the chemo, when it was one day at a time, I am still trying to feel my way forward into a rather uncertain future. I am keeping all my options open, meeting headhunters who might need someone with my profile, meeting with potential clients for my brand new PR business and meeting with friends.
What is unnerving about all this is the number of times I have had to relive the early days of the cancer journey, the fear and the shakiness, as I have to admit that I am a cancer survivor to people. And sometimes, people want to know more than they have a right, or need, to. Today, when I cancelled my meeting with my outplacement person, saying that I was feeling rather tired, having just had a bout of the flu last week. It was not enough for her. 'So long to get over the flu? Are you all right?" she asked. "Yes, I'm just tired." She continued to press."Are you sure?" I have to admit, I was annoyed. What she want me to say, that it was the cancer again? And if it were, why should I tell her, a total stranger? "I am just tired," I said. "Is that all right with you?" If I were anyone else, she would have accepted the tiredness excuse. But because I am a cancer survivor, I have to have something more serious.
Well, I don't. Take that and chew on it. She said she was just concerned. But even those who are concerned have to learn when to back off. Concern does not entitle you to the details of my life. I have had months of doctors prodding and poking, months with minimal personal privacy. Now, here is the total stranger, whose relationship with me does not merit confidences, expecting to be confided in.
Well, back off, I say! You will only be confided in because I choose to confide, not because you ask questions. I do not appreciate presumption of intimacy just because I have told you that I have cancer.
I know I should not be annoyed because Singaporeans as a whole have less of a concept of personal space than other people - probably because we live in such tight quarters, and partly because the Chinese culture as a whole does not respect personal space as much as other cultures.
But I want now is the right to be normal, to be treated as any other human being - and that includes the right to privacy. The physical facts of cancer are something most cancer survivors spit out pretty automatically - we've been doing it for months. But at some point, we need to move on from the physical elements of the disease to the life after treatment - a new life phase which to most of us is a gift, a blessing. After chemo, and radiation, and surgery, we want to begin living as fully as possible, in a life with parameters of our choosing, not a bug under a microscope.
For the past nine months, I have had contact only with the medical community and family and close friends. To other people who are now entering my circle - I am putting up fences, and a BEWARE sign. No prizes for guessing whose teeth will be gnashing if barriers are breached!
As with the chemo, when it was one day at a time, I am still trying to feel my way forward into a rather uncertain future. I am keeping all my options open, meeting headhunters who might need someone with my profile, meeting with potential clients for my brand new PR business and meeting with friends.
What is unnerving about all this is the number of times I have had to relive the early days of the cancer journey, the fear and the shakiness, as I have to admit that I am a cancer survivor to people. And sometimes, people want to know more than they have a right, or need, to. Today, when I cancelled my meeting with my outplacement person, saying that I was feeling rather tired, having just had a bout of the flu last week. It was not enough for her. 'So long to get over the flu? Are you all right?" she asked. "Yes, I'm just tired." She continued to press."Are you sure?" I have to admit, I was annoyed. What she want me to say, that it was the cancer again? And if it were, why should I tell her, a total stranger? "I am just tired," I said. "Is that all right with you?" If I were anyone else, she would have accepted the tiredness excuse. But because I am a cancer survivor, I have to have something more serious.
Well, I don't. Take that and chew on it. She said she was just concerned. But even those who are concerned have to learn when to back off. Concern does not entitle you to the details of my life. I have had months of doctors prodding and poking, months with minimal personal privacy. Now, here is the total stranger, whose relationship with me does not merit confidences, expecting to be confided in.
Well, back off, I say! You will only be confided in because I choose to confide, not because you ask questions. I do not appreciate presumption of intimacy just because I have told you that I have cancer.
I know I should not be annoyed because Singaporeans as a whole have less of a concept of personal space than other people - probably because we live in such tight quarters, and partly because the Chinese culture as a whole does not respect personal space as much as other cultures.
But I want now is the right to be normal, to be treated as any other human being - and that includes the right to privacy. The physical facts of cancer are something most cancer survivors spit out pretty automatically - we've been doing it for months. But at some point, we need to move on from the physical elements of the disease to the life after treatment - a new life phase which to most of us is a gift, a blessing. After chemo, and radiation, and surgery, we want to begin living as fully as possible, in a life with parameters of our choosing, not a bug under a microscope.
For the past nine months, I have had contact only with the medical community and family and close friends. To other people who are now entering my circle - I am putting up fences, and a BEWARE sign. No prizes for guessing whose teeth will be gnashing if barriers are breached!
posted by Simone @ 9:13 PM
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