Since her first cancer diagnosis in 2013, Haslet resident Barbara Long has faced a series of learning curves, from the treatment itself to her relationship to her hobbies like tennis and pickleball.
Along the way, Long, who has stage four breast cancer, has also had to reassess her relationship with her friends and family. Over the years, she lost touch with friends she met through sports. One of Long’s confidantes asked her to stop talking about her treatment and management.
"It was just disappointing and unexpected,” Long said. “But, you know, that’s what happened. They withdraw because they’re going on with their lives, and they should. I honor and respect that.”
Long’s experiences are common among people who have been diagnosed with cancer. A 2023 American Cancer Society survey found that over half of the patients and survivors polled experienced greater isolation due to their diagnosis or treatment.
It's so common a label has popped up to describe the experience: “cancer ghosting.”
Mirchelle Louis, Cancer Support Community North Texas CEO, said the relatively new term describes a well-known experience among patients. She believes younger people, for whom certain cancer diagnoses have become more common, created the phrase and refreshed the conversation.
“Talking about being ghosted in a relationship is a very comfortable place and comfortable way for them to express how they are feeling,” Louis said.
Cancer ghosting happens for a variety of reasons, Louis said. For one, a patient’s diagnosis is stressful for both them and their network.
“For individuals who are supporting somebody with the diagnosis they have ... they’re really coming into this almost as much as a deer in the headlights as the person who gets the diagnosis,” Louis said.
The CSCNT offers support groups and resources for both patients and their support networks.
When a patient is diagnosed with cancer, they have physicians and specialists who step in to offer them treatment and counsel, Louis said. Friends and family? Not so much.
“They don’t have anybody who immediately steps in and says, ‘Hey, here’s what you need to know, here’s what you need to do, here’s how you can say things,’” she said.
Louis recommends that people supporting a cancer patient be upfront about their availability for support and make specific offers, such as offering to pick up children or helping with laundry.
She also recommends friends and family avoid telling patients to “be positive.”
“Just be there and be honest, say, ‘I really don’t know what you’re going through. That must be pretty darn difficult,’” Louis said.
Patients should also realize that some people will not be able to be present for them, Louis said. But other people will.
“You’ll be surprised at who goes into your life and who goes out of your life,” Louis said.
Though Barbara Long lost touch with some friends, she’s gained others through her support group, as well as from her and her husband’s new hobby: traveling in their RV. The couple is a part of two RV clubs.
During gatherings, Long said she feels free to come and go as she pleases in a way she has not always since beginning treatment.
“If there’ something going on and I choose not to participate, nobody gets upset, and that’s how it should be, you know? Yet I always feel like I’m so happy to see them, and that is reciprocated,” Long said.
While she still mourns the friends she’s lost, Long said she’s happy to have the ones who’ve have joined her.
Got a tip? Email Kailey Broussard at kbroussard@kera.org.
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