Reliving a cancer diagnosis when someone else gets diagnosed

I don’t know why I didn’t immediately understand this but it has been interesting absorbing the reactions of those around me to my breast cancer diagnosis. I think most people fear getting cancer at some point of their lives. Some friends have taken news of my diagnosis harder than I have. I realized today that in addition to the fear and uncertainty they feel for me, they are also re-living scenes from their own lives, or even their future lives. “What would I do if I got cancer?” Of course, each person has to experience this through their own history, with their own fears. They remember their mother who lost all her hair when undergoing treatment for breast cancer. They remember their sister’s best friend who succumbed to cancer at age 18. They read the blog with a tinge of post-traumatic stress disorder recalling when they got their own diagnosis. It’s all very complicated.