I have been thinking about responding to some comments heard the other night in chat about how chat should perhaps be for patients only and we hear so often (I say it too sometimes!) that 'we don't belong' in the chat room - ex patients and carers sometimes feel they are 'frauds' and some patients feel they are less worthy of being in the room as perhaps others who are more seriously ill.
But really there is no more hierarchy in the chat room than there is in the cancer we have been all been affected by, however we have been affected by it. Cancer is indiscriminate and so by nature the needs of everyone in the chat room are just as varied and just as important as everyone else.
For an ex patient although they may be an 'ex patient' cancer must be a very major trauma in a person's life and I would imagine the support is needed as much as any lifelong condition, even if all clear. For ex carers although we may 'move forward' and start picking up our lives, that doesn't take away that our lives are sadder and lonelier without the person we are grieving and again just having people who understand makes all the difference.
But here's the biggest reason of all to explain to why so many ex-patients and ex-carers stick around in chat - for many of us we choose to stay to help the newer chatters experience the support we were lucky enough to experience when we were new (that's certainly my main reason!) but mainly we stay because we are not 'five minute wonder' friends - we all get to genuinely care about each other in chat and we want to follow how people are who we may have become very close to. I would like to think that everyone feels welcome in the room and feels better for coming in - I certainly was xx
