Why didn’t my friend tell me they have cancer?

Dianne Shumay, PhD. Oftentimes, patients need a little bit of time to kind of get used to the idea of having cancer first, before they start announcing it to people all over the place, because everybody they talk to is gonna ask about it. And so then they have to replay all of the news about the cancer, how they're feeling, and so it can be burdensome to carry the social role of a cancer patient.