In reality, cancer did two things to my friendships; strengthen
the bond or caused the friendships to sadly deteriorate.
From my personal experience, cancer affected my friendships
in both ways. I bonded more strongly with the friends that stuck by my side…
and I lost the friends that turned a blind eye to my suffering. You would think
an illness as severe as cancer would instantly strengthen the friendships I had
prior to my diagnosis, but for some of my friends, it pushed them away from me.
To this day, I have never had any explanations as to why the friends I once had
stopped speaking to me. It didn’t take long for me to put two and two together,
once I was diagnosed, the texts and calls started to stop and the visits were
non existent. Maybe they didn’t know how to deal with my diagnosis? But if the
tables were turned, I would have never left them in their darkest days. I didn’t
even have time to be sad, angry or stress about the loss of these friendships,
I had more important things to focus on at the time, like beating cancer. But
that was only the beginning of my lost friendships; some friends were there in
the beginning, and then slowly disappeared. This hurt me the most. I understand
that it was an important year at sixth form /college for everyone. Studying hard
and working was they personal priorities, but all I needed was a little text or
a phone call to know that they were still there. But I wont let these
deteriorated friendships consume me.