European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - May 24, 1977, Darmstadt, Hesse                                More than a for Many a silent stigma by ric1urd Severo new York times i anger int just a it is a stigma i few want to remaining a study in in irrationality and people who have cancer sometimes speak of themselves As the new lepers of being re Over protected and All at the same time and by the very people they look to for and among those who want to help cancer there is a sense of guilt they cannot a foreboding that they cannot a wife in Texas will not kiss the Man to whom she has been mantled for 27 years because she is afraid of catch ing his although doctors have assured her it is not a sister in new York decided she could no longer share dishes and eating utensils with her although they had lived together for 70 because she was afraid of somehow contracting the lung cancer he got after smok ing three packs of cigarettes a Day for most of his a Man in Oklahoma thinks cancer is the work of the Devil and a woman la Pennsylvania is sure that if you Pray to god and Are not it is a sign of retribution from the a Mother in California told her children not to play with the child of a neighbor because one of his parents had cancer and the child might be a a Well educated Young woman first lavished sympathy and love on a younger Cousin stricken with then shut her out despite remission and a hopeful prognosis and finally confessed to her i was frightened by the idea that i was getting closer to you and you were just going to die on for too Many the very word evokes an almost medieval fear of the a false equation that cancer equals in an Effort to Leam More about the problems associated with the new York times inter viewed 38 cancer patients from various parts of the United states As Well As medical psychiatrists and surgeons who had studied the disease and the problems associated with the times also spoke to members of families and friends and business associates of people suffering from what emerged was an unlikely Case of mental gymnastics a common disease that about 25 per cent of All americans May get in their lifetimes has come to be regarded As the expressed More frequently by people who did not have cancer than those who ignored positive indications suggesting More and More that cancer patients need not View the Advent of their disease As Mark ing the end of useful medical researchers say that if All kinds of cancer Are the disease has about a 47 per cent durability fifty per cent of All stroke victims Are dead within a year of the stroke and 35 per cent of All coronary Vic Tims arc dead within a month of the heart heart disease kills More people than cancer but cancer remains More it is an Awe shared by the the physician and the family and friends who want to be supportive of the Rene a psychiatrist at the memorial Sloan Kettering cancer Institute in new said that among patients with the question was repeatedly Why me they he an inner revue a concept of feeling themselves it would appear that the revulsion Felt by the victim was frequently mirrored by and magnified in those about with the result that his emotional adjustment was made even More the disease takes on proportions that Are simply not seen in other including those thai rival cancer in its Power to there is no other illness with this said no other with less social attitudes Are but a Man who had a heart attack had something socially redeeming about him he was considered a hard the stars and stripes even influenza could suggest you worked too people with ulcers Are regarded As worriers in a culture where worrying has an honorable with you get none of that the feelings of people who do not have but who Are trying to Deal with it in friends or emerge frequently As Brittle and initial feelings and expressions of sympathy May give Way to anger and resentment that go unrecognized for what they Are in the person experiencing the Emo much of the says ties in can cers image As a when people believe that an illness is going to be Ter they Are literally waiting for the victim to die and so there is an unspoken anger and guilt that he the Friend or relative of a cancer patient has to keep telling himself that he  be weary at All the visiting and travelling he has to  be angry at All the fuss Hes going the anger and guilt emerges in the chronicity of the disease and it is exacerbated by the belief that cancer will waste the body and do terrible things even if it Doest and an inability to know what to say to a patient under those because of the notion that cancer always people feel As if they arc dealing with someone scheduled to be Mastrovito adding that friends and relatives Felt the loss before it be cause they were sure that death was they might try to withdraw from the patient before he died so that when death perhaps the loss would not be Felt so the social problems associated with cancer appear to be of considerable although there Are As yet relatively few it remains a problem somewhat neglected by medical who have understand ably devoted most of their energies to studying the disease Many cancer patients and their families and friends have few or no adjustment problems because of the Dis in a surveys probably give a somewhat distorted View since the people who Are willing to talk about problems Are those who have experienced those without problems Are sometimes surprised to Leam that such problems but Orville a former Newspaperman who got then formed a National organization for cancer patients called make today says he has heard thousands of stories that give credence to the notion that the shunning of cancer if Ever time i give a workshop i hear the same Sto Ries he people keeping separate eating ten bed wives not kissing there to do stigma like How Many times do Vou read in a newspaper that someone you know who died of cancer after a prolonged illness he b something families dont want to talk about or even admit one patient at Joyce to to the unenviable position of being Able to compare the re actions of those around her to her cancer of the breast with the Way they responded a few years ago when she got Muli talc when i had multiple there was out my friends did not equate it with their own death As they did when i got said who recently had a Robert a Sophomore at Sarah Lawrence col had similar perceptions about reactions to his cancer i became a Symbol for their own mortality and they didst want to think about he said of some relatives and Fasano discovered on new years that he had Hodgkins which is cancer of the Lymph a form that often manifests itself among Young he recalled that people would come to see him in the Hospital and become so upset that i would have to take care of Fasano int bitter i was scared Why  they be he also spoke of Strain he sensed with one of i when i was really i Felt he was kind of Gruff with now in getting better and he wants to be pals with he deals with sick people and terminal people All the time and i guess he didst know whether i would be Winner or a tin ton Tobeh brei leukaemia patient Fisher biked new yarn tin paperboy Timothy Nevin still