What about when you are ghosted by the person with Cancer?
I have a newish friendship of 2 months with a man. We just clicked on a natural deeper connection and felt like we had known each other for years. We would text everyday, he would call and we would talk on the phone for 3 hours and we even caught up once and had dinner and did an activity for 5 hours, we were in effect getting to know each other.
What I have found since he was diagnosed with cancer 7 days ago and now out of remission again is that he is actually the one ghosting me. His Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma has come back and its Stage 3 and has now travelled to his lungs. The prognosis is a 62% chance he will make 5 years. Obviously he told me that much and he is absolutely devastated.
Since him telling me 7 days ago, I have sent and continue to send him a message once a day (it could be a "Miss our friendship", "Thinking of you", telling him I am here to support him and want to be there for him, asking if he would like a visit as I would love to visit, asking if if he would like a call to chat, sending funny videos to try and lift his spirits a bit, sending encouraging memes, beautiful pictures of places around the world.....and more than half the time he doesn't go into my message to read it until maybe 3 days later and when he does read what I have sent he simply doesn't respond and I am left on read.
Not sure if daily messages is too overwhelming for him or maybe he just wants to cut our connection and is hoping I just disappear into the yonder but I am feeling sad and not sure how long to keep this up as I am starting to feel it is not wanted by him. I would never Cancer Ghost but he is actually the one doing the ignoring behaviour.
What to do, what to do?
I can see where this would be concerning for you since it seems you are trying so hard to make sure your friend knows you are there for him. Without knowing your friend, I will say that we all process things very differently. I'm sure the news of a relapse takes time to process. Perhaps you can follow his lead a bit as he finds his way right now? I know that is difficult for you when you care so much, but I'm guessing he will find his way back to you when he is ready. When I was going through leukemia relapse, it was overwhelming for me to even look at my phone for a while. I hope you can find peace because it's wonderful that you care and want to show him. Hope this helps!
Angie -team memberThankyou. I guess I just don't know how often I should be sending texts. It's confusing to know whether to send one each day, every 2 days, once a week 🤷♀️
Yes, that's a tough one since we are all different in how we feel about it. Maybe he will give you some feedback soon and you won't have to question it. Wishing you the best. We're here for you any time you need support,
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