How to Be a Friend to a Friend Who Is Sick

09/29/2013

Cancer survivor and journalist Letty Cottin Pogrebin is the author of "How to Be a Friend to a Friend Who's Sick." (Photo by Mike Lovett)

Hello again. Welcome back to As It Is. I’m Kelly Jean Kelly.

Good news for people who live in polluted cities. A common garden herb may be able to help make the water cleaner and safer.

But first we talk about friendship and illness. For someone who is seriously ill, good friends can help -- or hurt.

A few years ago, Letty Cottin Pogrebin learned she had breast cancer. Some of her friends could talk easily to her about her illness. But others struggled. They could not be honest or supportive.

Ms. Pogrebin asked other cancer patients if their friendships had changed, too. Those conversations gave her an idea for a book. The book is called “How to Be a Friend to a Friend Who’s Sick.”

“People aren’t good at it naturally. It does not come naturally, so they really pause, they blunder, they can’t find the right words.”

Ms. Pogrebin found that fear caused many of the communication problems. Some people feel so uncomfortable, they do not want to see the sick person at all.

Rhonda Waithe says that is how her brother felt when her son was born with a serious disease.

“He was like, ‘I don’t know how to act. I wouldn’t know how to be around these people.’ And I would say to him, ‘Just be yourself. Because this is what they want -- for you to just be you!'”