How do you tell people you have cancer?

How do you tell family, friends, and co-workers that you have cancer; especially a rare form of cancer? This question has plagued me for the past couple of days.  On Tuesday, an oncologist told me I had carcinoid cancer. It is a rare, slow growing cancer that people can live with for decades and never even know they have it. On the other hand, this is the cancer that killed Steve Jobs, Dave Thomas (the founder of Wendy’s hamburger chain) and countless other people. How do you tell people who you care about and who care about you this type of news?

In this social media world we live in, what is the etiquette for this type of news? Do I tell each person individually, maybe do a post for all of my friends or tweet it to all of my followers? Should I take a picture of the pathology report and pin it to Pinterest? I do not know what to do. I do not want to offend anyone or make anyone upset that they found out by a post on Facebook. On the other hand, it can be tiring to say the words “I have cancer” over and over again.

I am thankful that the type of cancer I have is very different from the traditional cancer everyone is familiar with. As my oncologist stated “Most people die with this cancer not from it.”  It would only be under the most unusual of circumstances that I would need to have chemotherapy. The traditional treatment for Carcinoid Cancer is surgery and medication for symptoms and to slow tumor growth. Unless things go bad, most people would never even know I had cancer. Let’s pray that things do not go bad.

 I will admit I have some major guilty feelings going on. I feel guilty that I am scared about where this could go when my treatment is so easy compared to what other brave souls are facing. To all those who have faced or are facing cancer in your own lives, know that I honor you and your bravery.

Well, now that I have finally spilled my guts for all to read, I will say goodnight. May you all have sweet dreams. Oh, for you Grammar fanatics out there, I wrote this straight from the heart, without a thought for proper punctuation and grammar. Please forgive me for all the mistakes. I will try to do better next time. See ya.