54 - FRIENDS AS A SOURCE OF HOPE

BEWARE OF FAMILY AND FRIENDS

You have just become a target for all kinds of well-meaning, smooth talking, unintentionally deceiving and ever tempting “friends. “  They will come out of the woodwork, in the grocery store line, at the gym, across the back fence, and at church. They will be entirely sincere and sincerity sells, but does not guarantee truth.

 The number of my patients waylaid by well-meaning neighborly advice is amazing. Beware many of those friends are captive to the very fears we have already been talking about. They are running madly in every direction away from their fears and beckoning you to follow. They would love to have your company

Some of the wild treatment ideas that will be offered will sound bizarre and others quite legitimate. Some individuals diversify their portfolio of hopes by adding all sorts of concoctions, diets, enemas, magnets or vitamins. That is not what I was referring to. Those, when tried, feel good initially due to the hope inspiring placebo effect, an effect which is real, but short-lived, because it never actually shrinks tumors or prolongs lives.  For some the masquerade of the placebo effect lasts longer, but that is only for the folks who have slow-growing tumors which are not as yet producing much in the way of symptoms allowing the pretense to go on unexposed. Any situation where the cancer cannot be easily seen or measured nor experienced through painful symptoms is perfect to hide the falsity of the placebo’s hope. Meanwhile the cancer is free to grow unrecognized, never exposed to effective treatment until it is big enough to cause symptoms and too great to be denied. Beware of well-meaning testimonials. One person’s placebo does not make another’s effective treatment.