I've been reading this thread, and find it quite interesting. Thought I'd add my 2 cents. (sorry I have not been active on the forum in quite a while) I had some of what you are describing happen but quite a bit of the opposite. I lended up letting go of who I thought was a dear friend because as you all have described, She couldn't/wouldn't deal. I ended up sending her a letter the week before surgery forgiving her, as I realized she is the type of person who it's always all about her and she clearly didn't have room withion her to be supportive to another because it would remove the drama focus from herself. Then my in-laws,upon hearing the news, offered to come help with the kids etc after surgery. We accepted their offer and planned that my folks would come the first 3 weeks and they would come for the second 2-3 weeks depending on how I was doing, mainly expecting I would need help with the kids by then. A few days before my surgery, they announced they had come acroww a great deal on a 28 day Mediteranian cruise and would be leaving the day of my surgery. But suggested after they returned 4 weeks later, and spend a week resting at home and then would need to visit their other grandson, they could come to help by mid November. (my surgery was end of Sept) My husband and I were so hurt and stunned, and then of course I became very angry, that I told them the crisis would be over by then, so no thanks. They proceeded to tell the rest of the family they had offered to help us but we refused. To this day, I do not forgive them for what they did to not so much me, but their son ad grand daughters who were counting on them.
But the upshot of this is..... The outpouring of support I got from my friends and aquaintences, and even people I didn';t know from the community was incredible. The days prior to the surgery was a steady flow of well wishers bringing little gifts and hugs of support, After a while It made me feel kind of weird, like they were coming to say goodby, just in case it may be the last time. I had a few of my closest friends at my side at the hospital along with my folks, and then after I got home, flowers from everyone the first few days, a few visitors as they didn't know if I was up to visiting yet. The meals started coming in and my mom asked them to hold off until she had to leave some 3 weeks later.Apparently they had set up a scheduel for meals to be brought. Once she went home, I had meals delivered every dnight for over a month. My husband got the kids ready and dropped them off at school every morning, but I had people picking them up everyday and bringing them home so he could geta full days in at work. They have 1/2 days at school on Fridays, so every Friday they were picked up and taken care of the rest of the afternoon. This kind of stuff went on for months. I later found out that a prayer chain had been set up and I had some 200 people praying at the same time for me and my doctors as I went into surgery. Thinking about this brings tears to my eyes as it di when it was going on. SO YOU SEE, NOT EVERYONE ABANDONS US.
But the most incredible supporter was a woman I only kew from seeing her around school. Her daughter was in my daughters class at the time. I had heard she had had a brain tumor some years before. I mentioned to her my diagnosis and inquired about her experience. Turns out she had had 2 craniotomy's 2 AN's (1 was regrowth) and 1 meniginoma. This womderful woman jumped right in as my biggest advocate and supporter. Some 2 1/2+ yrs later, she and I have never really become "close" friends, we run in different circles of friends, but we always stay in touch every few months or so. I try and chekc in with her as she has many problems from all her surgeries and gets fairly frequent MRI's. Unfortunately, She called me yesterday with some very bad news. She has 2 more tumors, opne on each side of her head. She ahs so much scar tissue, they mad go at it with radiation this time, but she is scared of loosing the hearing in her only good ear. Now it's my turn to be supportive for her. After going through all this I have found I am much more compassionate to others and find myself reaching out to people with medical issues. I have 3 new friends now who are battling breast cancer. I find we seem to find eachother. while sitting in the dentist chair recently, the assistant couldn't get the xray thing in my mouth, in explaining I had had brain surgery which cut throught the jaw muscle (middle fosa) I now couldn't open my mouth very wide. She immediately started telling me about her breast cancer, that her hair was a wig etc. It makes me look back on the how and the why, when I had heard through the grapevine this woman had had tumors, I never asked her how she was or reached out to her. Kind of like us, we look OK, so people just figure we are.
As someone else said here, I think it's just human nature to shy away from things that are uncomfortable, unless you have been through something like this, then it's easy to see the need for compassion and reach out to others.
Patti UT
