Cheryncp123

“You know, I heard that green tea/apricot pits/jogging/apple cider vinegar/kale/broccoli/mustard greens/fresh avocados/yoga/this miracle powder/oil/salve/etc., etc., etc. will cure your mom’s cancer. You really need to try it. It worked for my cousin’s friend’s stepmom’s brother. Let me get you the information!”
If you have ever had a loved one with cancer, you’ve heard these offers.  You know exactly how they sound. The personal heroism of a friend or neighbor or acquaintance or coworker, offered bravely to your face, can feel so affrontive and offensive. This is especially true when medical treatment plans are not working; when your loved one is especially vulnerable for any number of emotional or physical reasons; or—
wait for it—
when the person offering the miracle cure is otherwise uninterested, uninvolved, and/or unhelpful in the actual caregiving of the patient.
There. I said it. Do not come up to me offering miracles, period. I don’t have the energy to explain to you that, while broccoli is great and we should all definitely get more exercise, they alone are not going to abate the tumors in my mom’s lungs. I don’t have the emotional wherewithal to be polite to you while staring in disbelief that you yourself have fallen victim to believing some scheme.
And if you have not asked if we need anything, or brought us a cake or pie or casserole or loaf of bread in the four years since she’s been diagnosed, then you have an especially low level of credence or gravitas with me in terms of your interest in my mom’s well-being.
If you are a caregiver, you know exactly what I mean. We are on the same page right now. We are all preachers and choirs (or pots and kettles) at once.
But…that doesn’t mean we know what to do about these offers of help. As annoyed or hurt or exhausted as we may be, the fact remains that these are relationships we may need to maintain. Telling folks exactly how we think or feel about their unhelpful “help,” using all the words we want to use, is not exactly conducive to maintaining the relationships. So, we need a coping mechanism. We need a tool.
At some point, off the cuff, in one of my more emotionally raw moments, when faced with one of these offers, I let slip from my mouth: “you know what would actually be helpful?”
And, just as if in a sitcom, I jumped; surprised at my own words; time slowed to a crawl; I turned my head; I looked at my acquaintance, as if in molasses-slow-motion, terrified that she would be offended; and…
She wasn’t!
She looked right back at me, unaware of my sitcom-terror-moment, and said “what? What do you need? Let me help!”
And my world shifted from a sitcom to a Disney princess movie. Time sped back up, birds chirped, the sun came out, the clouds parted, and music started to play.
Well, that’s how it felt, anyway. Seriously: I was floored. Her genuine interest in helping had been proven, and I realized: she just didn’t know HOW to help, or WHAT to offer, so she had reverted to the only tip/trick/hack that she knew of on the topic.
My point is: as caregivers, we are so consumed by all that we have to do that we cannot imagine anyone in our lives or networks being oblivious to our reality. But, my friends, they are. All of our friends (and relatives and acquaintances and neighbors and coworkers) are understandably consumed by their own realities. When they occasionally can fall out of their own orbits to see what we are up against, it takes a lot of time to catch up with the status of things, let alone to study up on what we might need or not need. This is time that the folks in our networks usually don’t have, my friends. So, if they are aware of some one-size-fits-all grab-and-go panacea, of course that’s what they’re going to offer. These are, after all, unfortunately readily available and highly advertised.
Here’s the point: on that day that the skies cleared and my friend stopped in her tracks to ask what I actually needed, I learned that her heart was in the right place. Her intentions were good, even if ill-informed. And, I would venture to guess, that's the case 9x/10.
And so, the “pivot” was born. This became my tool, and I offer it to you here in hopes that you can make use of it as well.
(If you're a fan of the movie or musical "Legally Blonde," or if you love "Clueless" or "Mean Girls" or anything like that, this can alternatively be referred to as the "bend and snap." Don't ask).
The “pivot” is just the name I give to my blatant usury of the assumed good intentions of the poor soul who offers me snake oil. Here is the script:
Person: “I’m sorry to hear about your mom’s lung cancer. Have you tried making a smoothie from donkey fur? I hear that cures cancer.”
Me: “OH my gosh, thank you, that’s so nice of you to tell me. Hey, ya know, I’m really covered up on Thursday. Can you bring mom some lunch?”
BOOM. Done. Weapon deployed.
(The caveat, of course, is that you have to have a ready-made mental list of assistance that would be useful to you. Frankly, I think this is always good to have, so that you can always respond productively when folks ask what they can do, no matter how they actually ask the question).
Anyway: my favorite part of using the pivot tool?
You will *very quickly* separate the wheat from the chaff. You will immediately be able to gauge whether the person offering the unhelpful help was actually interested in helping, or only being unhelpful after all.
And, at the end of the day, they might actually come through.

Becoming Empowered Advocates
My wife, Heather, told me about LUNGevity National HOPE Summit and that she wanted to attend. She received a Travel Grant from LUNGevity and I decided to join her at the conference. It is one of the best things we ever did. The wealth of information about lung cancer available through LUNGevity is not comparable to anything I could find in Canada or through any Canadian organizations. LUNGevity is so caring, thoughtful, and cutting edge.
Heather and I attended our first National HOPE Summit in 2016. It was so incredibly inspiring. We got to see first-hand that the statistics are just numbers, not individual expiry dates. The number of people in attendence was impressive and the conference was well organized. We met people from across North America who embodied hope and positivity. It felt like a family. The medical professionals at this event were amazing. They spoke with my wife and gave her their contact information if they could ever assist her in any way in the future. After that experience, I felt empowered to become an advocate and to get involved with awareness events with my wife in our home province of New Brunswick.
I followed LUNGevity on Twitter and I joined the LUNGevity Caregivers group on Facebook. I started participating in a few of LUNGevity’s LC Caregiver Twitter chats, which are held the first Wednesday of every month. I utilized the #stopthestigma hashtag on Twitter whenever possible. I volunteered to be a LifeLine Support Mentor to provide peer-to-peer support to other caregivers, and I joined LUNGevity’s Social Media Ambassadors to help raise awareness online.
My goal is to raise awareness of lung cancer as the number one cancer killer, taking more lives annually than breast, colorectal, and prostate cancers combined, while receiving the least amount of federal funding for research. I hope that my advocacy efforts will help other caregivers through sharing my experience, strength, and hope.
Whenever I can, I join my wife in her advocacy work. It is important to us to stay educated on new treatments, research, and changes within the lung cancer community. We continuously meet with Federal and Provincial politicians to educate them about lung cancer, to lobby for equal access to health care, to promote genetic testing, and to demand equal catastrophic drug coverage in Canada.
Heather lends her name and story to different publications to spread the word about lung cancer. Through social media, she has connected with doctors and research scientists across Canada to support their requests for research funding. The most recent was through a connection with a very passionate doctor at the Dalhousie University Research Foundation.
I hope to help educate the greater public that if you have lungs, you can get lung cancer. It’s not “just” a smoker’s disease and smoking is listed as a possible cause for all cancers. Lung cancer patients do not deserve this disease. I plan to continue to volunteer at events in my area to help raise funds for research and to promote the work and resources available through LUNGevity. And Heather and I look forward to attending National HOPE Summit together this spring.

My name is Eleanor
I have cancer, but it is not who I am.
I am not a number or the result of a
lab test.
My name is Eleanor
I am a baby at my mothers breast.
I am a toddler being thrown high in
the air by my father and giggling.
I am a young girl playing with my
dolls and my trucks.
I am a teenage girl going on my
first date full of nervous anticipation.
I am graduating high school and
trying to figure out what next.
I am a young woman walking down
the aisle with the love of my life.
I am an employee and a homemaker
I am a new mother.
I love my family, my friends, roses, cooking
and reading.
I love watching sappy old movies and
going through a box of tissues while
munching on popcorn.
I love to dance and sing.
I am a woman, a wife, a mother, a sister,
a granddaughter,a niece, an aunt, I am
a grandmother and a great grandmother.
I am all of these things and more but what
I am not is a disease.
I have cancer and it may destroy my body
but it cannot touch my spirit or my soul.
So you see although my body may have cancer it does
not have me.
My name is Eleanor.

My name is Eleanor
I have cancer, but it is not who I am.
I am not a number or the result of a
lab test.
My name is Eleanor
I am a baby at my mothers breast.
I am a toddler being thrown high in
the air by my father and giggling.
I am a young girl playing with my
dolls and my trucks.
I am a teenage girl going on my
first date full of nervous anticipation.
I am graduating high school and
trying to figure out what next.
I am a young woman walking down
the aisle with the love of my life.
I am an employee and a homemaker
I am a new mother.
I love my family, my friends, roses, cooking
and reading.
I love watching sappy old movies and
going through a box of tissues while
munching on popcorn.
I love to dance and sing.
I am a woman, a wife, a mother, a sister,
a granddaughter,a niece, an aunt, I am
a grandmother and a great grandmother.
I am all of these things and more but what
I am not is a disease.
I have cancer and it may destroy my body
but it cannot touch my spirit or my soul.
So you see although my body may have cancer it does
not have me.
My name is Eleanor.

My name is Eleanor
I have cancer, but it is not who I am.
I am not a number or the result of a
lab test.
My name is Eleanor
I am a baby at my mothers breast.
I am a toddler being thrown high in
the air by my father and giggling.
I am a young girl playing with my
dolls and my trucks.
I am a teenage girl going on my
first date full of nervous anticipation.
I am graduating high school and
trying to figure out what next.
I am a young woman walking down
the aisle with the love of my life.
I am an employee and a homemaker
I am a new mother.
I love my family, my friends, roses, cooking
and reading.
I love watching sappy old movies and
going through a box of tissues while
munching on popcorn.
I love to dance and sing.
I am a woman, a wife, a mother, a sister,
a granddaughter,a niece, an aunt, I am
a grandmother and a great grandmother.
I am all of these things and more but what
I am not is a disease.
I have cancer and it may destroy my body
but it cannot touch my spirit or my soul.
So you see although my body may have cancer it does
not have me.
My name is Eleanor.

My name is Eleanor
I have cancer, but it is not who I am.
I am not a number or the result of a
lab test.
My name is Eleanor
I am a baby at my mothers breast.
I am a toddler being thrown high in
the air by my father and giggling.
I am a young girl playing with my
dolls and my trucks.
I am a teenage girl going on my
first date full of nervous anticipation.
I am graduating high school and
trying to figure out what next.
I am a young woman walking down
the aisle with the love of my life.
I am an employee and a homemaker
I am a new mother.
I love my family, my friends, roses, cooking
and reading.
I love watching sappy old movies and
going through a box of tissues while
munching on popcorn.
I love to dance and sing.
I am a woman, a wife, a mother, a sister,
a granddaughter,a niece, an aunt, I am
a grandmother and a great grandmother.
I am all of these things and more but what
I am not is a disease.
I have cancer and it may destroy my body
but it cannot touch my spirit or my soul.
So you see although my body may have cancer it does
not have me.
My name is Eleanor.

My name is Eleanor
I have cancer, but it is not who I am.
I am not a number or the result of a
lab test.
My name is Eleanor
I am a baby at my mothers breast.
I am a toddler being thrown high in
the air by my father and giggling.
I am a young girl playing with my
dolls and my trucks.
I am a teenage girl going on my
first date full of nervous anticipation.
I am graduating high school and
trying to figure out what next.
I am a young woman walking down
the aisle with the love of my life.
I am an employee and a homemaker
I am a new mother.
I love my family, my friends, roses, cooking
and reading.
I love watching sappy old movies and
going through a box of tissues while
munching on popcorn.
I love to dance and sing.
I am a woman, a wife, a mother, a sister,
a granddaughter,a niece, an aunt, I am
a grandmother and a great grandmother.
I am all of these things and more but what
I am not is a disease.
I have cancer and it may destroy my body
but it cannot touch my spirit or my soul.
So you see although my body may have cancer it does
not have me.
My name is Eleanor.

My name is Eleanor
I have cancer, but it is not who I am.
I am not a number or the result of a
lab test.
My name is Eleanor
I am a baby at my mothers breast.
I am a toddler being thrown high in
the air by my father and giggling.
I am a young girl playing with my
dolls and my trucks.
I am a teenage girl going on my
first date full of nervous anticipation.
I am graduating high school and
trying to figure out what next.
I am a young woman walking down
the aisle with the love of my life.
I am an employee and a homemaker
I am a new mother.
I love my family, my friends, roses, cooking
and reading.
I love watching sappy old movies and
going through a box of tissues while
munching on popcorn.
I love to dance and sing.
I am a woman, a wife, a mother, a sister,
a granddaughter,a niece, an aunt, I am
a grandmother and a great grandmother.
I am all of these things and more but what
I am not is a disease.
I have cancer and it may destroy my body
but it cannot touch my spirit or my soul.
So you see although my body may have cancer it does
not have me.
My name is Eleanor.