Did I change ever since getting diagnosed? I'm not exactly sure but certainly there are things which are not the same anymore. My perspectives towards some things changed and I'm going through a stage to go back to the old self all over again, so I feel weird many a times trying to do something I used to do. Sometimes it works at first try, sometimes i just couldn't.
Meeting people. Sometimes I'm not comfortable, yet sometimes I'm fine. I don't know what was the deciding factor, it's simply not consistent. Sometimes I'm eager to share, but there are instances I just don't wanna say too much about my condition.
Guess Jen managed to touch on some parts which i felt was very true:
When I was a second year law student (a couple years before I was diagnosed with Hodgkin's), a guy I knew -- he sat three seats down from me in Contracts as a 1L and was in all my first year classes -- was diagnosed with colon cancer. My inclination was to treat him as though he was EXACTLY the same guy he'd always been. Once or twice he brought up his cancer, and we chatted about it, but basically I think he appreciated being treated the same and as normal as opposed to being avoided by people who were always terrified to say the wrong thing ...
I don't have an answer for you. But having gone through that experience, I was not surprised by how people reacted strangely when they found I had Hodgkin's ... I understood there was really nothing "right" they could say. Even when you read posts here, some people are mad that others treat them differently, others are mad that others don't acknowledge their illness ..... It CAN be very hard to be on the other side because there's no set right thing to say that applies to everyone. Me ... I liked to joke around about Hodgkin's and I didn't want to talk about my "feelings." I didn't want sympathy, just treat me the same as you always did.
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