This Cancer is Preventable

 

It was a beautiful morning that day, way back in 2008. Then, I received that call from my friend in Mumbai. A Malayalee born and bred in Hyderabad, married to a Malayalee settled in Mumbai, she speaks a unique tongue. Our friendship had gone past the necessity of starting conversations with a good morning or good evening. The telephone calls between us were not very regular, but when we spoke, we picked up from where we left off last. We talked about small things in life. Most of the conversation was reserved for pulling each other's legs and laughing. There was happiness in our conversation, always. It has been like that since we met for the first time in 2005. But that call in 2008 was different. 

 “Arey, do you know something?” she asked. She sounded dead serious. 

In the normal course of conversation, I would have said something funny or pulled her leg. “What happened?’ I asked, sensing something wrong in her voice. “I have breast cancer,” she said.

I was stunned and did not know what to say. I kept quiet, all the while thinking what to say and how to console her. I did not have to. She told me the details of the diagnosis and what she planned to do next.  This was one time when I was tongue-tied, and she led the conversation, and I was just making some incoherent sounds to tell her that I was alive at the other end. There was nothing much I could have done to help her in any manner. 

In the 17 years since then, I have met a few people afflicted with cancer. Many of them survived. Some of them with whom I spent time did not make it. There was nothing that I could have done for anyone to change their medical condition. In a few cases, I helped them prepare themselves and their families for the days ahead. In the others, I was only a witness to the unravelling events. That is when I noticed a pattern.

The initial response to the discovery of the disease is shock, pain, and disbelief. The uncertainty of the future immediately steps into take whatever mind space is left. Almost concurrently, the question, “Why me?” begins to gnaw at the person. During this time, the afflicted individuals and those around them undergo a visible change in their behaviour. They close ranks and behave as if they are guarding a state secret. Extra efforts are made to keep the secret away from other friends, relatives, and neighbours. As the situation worsens, most people withdraw into the shells of their own making and inevitably suffer in loneliness, the intense pain and anxiety. Only a very few choose to share their problem beyond their immediate support system. This reaction is not limited to cancer. When we come face-to-face with serious adversities or life-threatening challenges, most of us react likewise; the way our responses manifest might differ.

Why should anyone share their problem with everyone? 

Why should they publicise their sufferings?

How does sharing our problems with others help us?

Valid questions. The rights and privileges of privacy are paramount to an individual. The decision to share an individual's problem with somebody else is a personal choice. It must unequivocally remain so. 

I am interested in the study of human behaviour and often look at people's behaviour more as manifestations of something beyond what the eye can see. Life, over the last 66 years, has convinced me that the weaknesses and inadequacies inherent in each one of us drive our responses to various stimuli. This holds even for groups. Fake news and propaganda fan our vulnerabilities. That is the reason why it spreads faster than the truth. That is why religious teachers and politicians thrive on fear and hate. When afflictions are personal, individual traits drive the response. Therefore, people from similar socio-economic and cultural backgrounds and even from the same family respond very differently when they are afflicted with similar grave personal challenges or adversities. 

Why do we behave the way we do? 

Some experts point to fear of social stigma as the cause. Diseases like AIDS, lunacy, and leprosy are associated with social stigma. In a deeply conservative society like ours, there are serious consequences and repercussions associated with personal afflictions. The stigma could continue to socially impact the near and dear ones well beyond the life of the afflicted person. In such circumstances, withholding information, hiding the ailment, or denying the adversity can be understood. When COVID-19 was raging, and people at large attired in protective suits were chasing down anyone suspected of being infected, keeping the infection a secret was understandable. Heart-related conditions, diabetes or blood pressure issues are not communicable diseases and cannot be attributed to immoral living. Many people take pains to hide lifestyle diseases and even take offence at being asked. 

Some people tend to hide their problems due to fear of losing their position in society or the image of wealth and well-being they think they have in society. Not long ago, when most of us knew we needed each other, we accepted dependence on others as normal. We were open to sharing and caring materially and emotionally. It was expected and easily accepted. The growth of affluence in society has brought along a sense of omnipotence amongst us individuals. Sharing an adversity or a problem with others is nowadays perceived as an erosion of that self-assumed potency. Anyone sympathising risks being seen as a threat to that notion of adequacy. Deeply suspicious individuals, who take care to remain aloof, have nothing to do with others. They moat themselves into emotional isolation. It could even be due to the fear of loss of opportunities.  Despite easily discernible and obvious signs, people still deny loss of jobs, financial setbacks and many such adversities, hoping to recover and regain the position they think they occupy. Reasons could be any. My search narrowed down to two possible reasons, equally strong and interconnected but less discussed.

We are a deeply conservative society driven by faith, beliefs, and customs. Irrespective of how we treat religion or faith in our personal lives now, most of us have been brought up deeply religious and with the conviction that our present is the result of our past; our deeds, in this life or the ones before. Life seen through the prism of a cause-and-effect continuum in perpetuity, with an infinite repayment term to cope with, comes with the burden of servicing presumed debts of the unknown past with sufferings of the present. Effectively, we tend to believe we are suffering because we did something wrong and are now the subject of divine displeasure.  Destiny, or God's will, is what most people would call it. It may not be the case with all of us universally, but most people around us certainly subscribe to that thought. Subconsciously, we do not like to be seen as servicing debts of the past!  Imprinted deep within our DNA, the belief system that we have inherited or developed has a significant role in dictating how we respond to stimuli. The strong belief that we are reaping the fruits of our own doing drives us immediately to invoke God. We even approach crafty godmen to augment our efforts in seeking divine intervention. They immediately set about using the godsent opportunity to their best.

Most of us, if not all, grew up with the phrase, “What will others think?” It has been used by our parents and elders to effectively rein us in. Our life has evolved around the concept of external validation of right and wrong. 

What will people think when we are in the deep? The guy must have done something bad to be suffering this! Who wants to be seen as having sinned in this life or in the earlier ones? Nobody, especially the afflicted, would. There is another side to this line of thought, equally bad. People tend to think that others will be happy seeing them in a state of suffering. So, they deliberately get into denial mode to prevent others from saying, “This wasn't good enough for him!”

When I reached this stage of the article, I decided to call my friend in Mumbai and check with her my deductions. She agreed with me on what I had concluded. She, a firm believer, told me that she did not ask, “Why me?” I concede, but she would be an exception rather than a rule. 

Did she share her problem with others? 

Yes. She shared her predicament with a very few. The reason she gave me was revealing. When people come to know of an issue, the first response is normally sympathy, genuine or make-believe. The discussion has only one natural course of progression. Usually, it is about people they know and have faced similar situations, and the terrible times they went through. In the garb of providing moral support, the sympathy-talk normally puts the fear of the devil in the person who is already suffering. “I shared the news with a very few, and you were one among those few. I had not disclosed it even to my mother that time,” she replied.

“Why did you share the news with me?” I asked.

“I knew you would not put on a show of sympathy. I trusted you,” she said.

That answered it all. In times of need, there are just a few whom we can trust. Yet, we need to find someone, however helpless they may be, to share our fears and worries. Do not let our thoughts become crabs.

My friend from Mumbai and I talk whenever we feel like. We still laugh a lot. There is happiness in our conversation, even when the chips are down. 

 

PS: Gratitude to Dr Abraham Kuruvilla, a renowned counsellor, for helping me refine my thoughts on the subject.