I thought I was prepared....from the lovely box of scalp cosmetics that my thoughtful team had sent, to the soft woollen hats my good friend knitted, I was ready. But.... I had under estimated something, the chemo hat, the bald head, now my cancer is on display for the world to see. It's no longer my choice to tell someone or not, it's there, obvious, just like a label on my forehead.
Out walking on Sunday, actually no one reacted any differently, people smiled, nodded and commented on the weather in that very typically British way of ours. But at work today on a video call, a very different matter. I joined a call where most of the colleagues were not aware of my illness. After about an hour, someone dropped me a message asking how I was, but other than that, nothing, radio silence! I felt uncomfortable, that people didn't care. I joined a different call, similarly those colleagues didn't know either, but this time I had 6 messages asking after my health. The difference? The second call was made up of people from France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands. The first call was exclusively British, well except I realised for the colleague who reached out to me, she's German!
My conclusion....are we in the UK too embarrassed to offer empathy, too fearful of saying the wrong thing? Then I wondered how many times have I been in a situation where I didn't know what to say, so said nothing. I learnt an interesting lesson today.
