I Am Sorry for Being a Bad Cancer Role Model

Breast cancer survivors says that even though cancer is big, scary and demanding, it never justifies bad behavior as a person.

BY Barbara Tako

PUBLISHED March 06, 2018

Barbara Tako is a breast cancer survivor (2010), melanoma survivor (2014) and author of Cancer Survivorship Coping Tools–We'll Get You Through This. She is a cancer coping advocate, speaker and published writer for television, radio and other venues across the country. She lives, survives, and thrives in Minnesota with her husband, children and dog. See more at www.cancersurvivorshipcopingtools.com, or www.clutterclearingchoices.com.

It is tough to talk about how unhappy I am about how I handled my breast cancer seven years ago, but now I get sort of a second chance with my upcoming prophylactic double mastectomy.

I was a bad sport and spoiled brat about my cancer. Honestly, many cancer survivors have probably handled their cancer diagnosis more graciously than I did. The sky was falling! The sky was falling! Well, I was actually pretty fortunate as far as the type of cancer I had, and it really wasn't falling, but I acted as though it was.

Some of us need more help than others to get pulled through their cancer experience. Some people are simply more graceful or experienced with cancer going into their diagnosis. I was terrible with my breast cancer diagnosis – my first cancer diagnosis – at age 46. Everyone encounters problems in the course of life, be it with cancer or something else, like deaths of loved ones, employment difficulties, relationship problems, health problems, all of it.

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