by Carolyn Thomas   ❤️   Heart Sisters (on Blue Sky)

“If you have to get cancer, yours is a good kind to get!”  That’s what someone recently said out loud to me. It’s the kind of thing you might say out loud if you were truly trying to cheer me up but weren’t quite sure what on earth to say to a heart patient with a newly diagnosed malignant breast tumor the size of a small grapefruit. Yale University professor of psychology Dr. Laurie Santos calls this cheerfully minimizing response to a cancer patient as “the kind that decides ‘bad’ negative emotions could be fixed if only we had a more ‘look on the bright side!’ attitude.”

Nobody wants to say the wrong thing to any newly-diagnosed patient, but that perky “good kind of cancer” comment landed with a hollow thud. It’s also an example of something that only a patient might say one day – when this is behind her.
Continue reading “When “Look on the bright side!” feels wrong” →