Navigating the Holiday Season During Cancer Treatment
- Living with cancer can be particularly difficult during the holiday season. You may be feeling down, stressed, or simply not have energy to follow normal traditions.
- Experts recommend being candid with those around you if you have specific needs — including if you would prefer not to discuss your health.
- There is also value in trying to remain positive, though, of course, this is easier said than done. Psychologist Dr. Marianna Strongin said she challenges her patients to take the holiday as it is — and try and fine new and innovative ways to find joy within it.
Fighting cancer is difficult at any time, but it can be especially challenging during the holidays when your loved ones want to ask about your disease. It can also be difficult keeping a positive attitude when everyone around you is celebrating.
Read MoreHaving the ‘cancer conversation’
Whether you’re the one with cancer, or your loved one has cancer, there’s a valuable lesson to be learned here when navigating the holiday season. As a cancer patient, how do you navigate when your loved one wants to talk about your cancer? And as a loved one, how do you know when the person with cancer wants to, or doesn’t want to talk about it?“When talking to loved ones about your preferences and discussing your cancer journey during the holidays, it’s important that you be your authentic self,” Dr. Strongin says. “So rather than telling people exactly what you want, it’s important to share why you want that.”
And this includes telling people if you would prefer not to talk about cancer at all.
“When we are our most authentic self and disclose our true feelings, the people around us feel us. So if you aren’t feeling comfortable talking about your cancer and you don’t want it to be a part of the holiday season, tell them why that is. Tell them why talking about it would be so distressing for you.”
If someone in your family has cancer and makes it clear they don’t want to talk about it, then you need to respect that. Everyone deals with having this disease in a different way some people want to talk about it, while others don’t. And that’s totally OK.
Staying positive through the holidays — and beyond
The holiday season has a way of marking the time in our lives, Dr. Strongin says. It tends to be more intense than other times of the year. So what if you’re having a hard time remaining positive during this season that’s supposed to be filled with so much joy?
“For patients who are going through a difficult moment, it becomes a real lens into what’s happening for them because they can remember the holidays the year before or even the year before that,” Dr. Strongin says. “And it becomes a sense of reality when they know that this is going to be the year that’s marked by this (a cancer battle or diagnosis).”
If you find that you identify with what Dr. Strongin is saying, she tells us that she has a challenge for you this holiday season: “I really challenged (cancer patients) to kind of take this holiday as it is, to find the joy in it, to find ways to accept the reality of where they are in this time and space.”
Dr. Zuri Murrell explains how staying positive can have a real impact during the cancer journey.
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