“Your support group has been together for a year and a half. You started off dealing with your feeling about the cancer that each of you had, then your experiences in treatment. Lately you’ve been talking about how you would move on from here.” Loretta Moore, their facilitator at the Senior Center was summing up the progress they had made. “Now you seem to be repeating yourselves. You all talk about how tired you get and need a lot of rest. You lack the ability to move on. It seems you are at an impasse. Before your next meeting, think back over your time together and see if you can find a way to move forward.”
Gene MacFarlene, 71, retired travel agent (short and tubby with smiling eyes and a fringe of grey hair): I hated having cancer: I felt that I was letting Ellen and the kids down when I had always been the strong one they looked to. I thought the doctors and nurses were nice people but I doubted at first that they knew what they were doing. They told me they removed the tumor and the chemo would prevent its return. Really!? I guess I’m going to live a while longer. By the end of the treatment I could joke with the staff and brighten their day. Maybe that’s my future, a comedy act.