How do most people respond to a cancer diagnosis?
Most people are shocked by it. There is a subset of people who have, in some ways, prepared themselves for it because of a strong family history or a symptom that has persisted for a long time that started to enter their minds. But most people are so shocked they have a hard time concentrating on the physician's words after that. It takes their breath away.
Also, nobody enters the diagnosis of cancer in a vacuum. Everybody's got problems in their life and things that they're dealing with already. A lot of people will say, "I don't have the time to deal with this. I don't have the energy to deal with this." It's also hard to be told you have cancer without thinking you're going to die. Even if the prognosis is very good, people often respond to it as though it is a potentially fatal illness.
What are some of the first steps you see people take after diagnosis?
Today, most people seek out information right away. And it is often a family member who will first get mobilized. They will start researching the disease and talking with various organizations. Often the family member has more energy for it at first.
Is this initial stage of collecting information overwhelming?
Yes. There's been enormous progress in cancer treatment, and there are lots of different ideas about how to treat. So with more options to choose from, there are more considerations to be made by the patient. And this puts an enormous burden on the person who is diagnosed and those people close to him to try and make these decisions when there aren't always the right resources there to help them choose.
