Resources
Your friendships and your cancer
Friendships are important. There are some friends you can talk to about anything and everything, but it can still be hard to tell your friends you’ve been diagnosed with cancer.
Cancer and my friendships
Friendships are important, they give us a sense of belonging and they teach us emotional and social skills.
There are some friends you can talk to about anything and everything, but it can still be hard to tell them you’ve been diagnosed with cancer.
Making and keeping friends takes time and energy, but now you have your cancer treatment taking up a lot of your time and energy. You may find that some friendships change and that you make new ones. Sometimes people close to the you will fade away, while others turn out to be quite supportive.
If you are nervous to tell your friends about your diagnosis, you can ask your parent or teacher to help support you.
Some friends may not know how to respond; they may be quiet because they’re not sure how to react or emotional or even ask a lot of questions.
A few ways your friends can support you
They will want to help so tell them it might be hard for you to ask for help but you will try to be honest and open with them if you can and lean on them when you need to.
Let them know there is a lot going on with being diagnosed and treatment so you might be frustrated, snappy or angry at times. Ask them to be patient with you.
Ask them to keep you updated on things outside of your current bubble. Let them know you still want to be included and invited to things, even if it may be a while before you can go.
Encourage them to ask questions, and let them know even if they think the questions are dumb, to ask anyway. Don’t forget, you choose how much you want to answer or share.
Give them suggestions of how they can help you, like bringing in your favourite snack to hospital, making you a Netflix binge-list, doing craft with you, or just making silly faces at each other to see who giggles first.
Share this page which has information for friends about how to support someone with cancer, so that they can find answers to some of their questions.
If you want to talk to someone about coming to terms with a change in a friendship, you can contact the Redkite support team. Your friends can talk to someone too, if they want to understand better what you’re going through.
Your friends may not understand why you look different or not be able to do the things you used to do. Your friends may find this hard to deal with. Remember that while their issues may seem trivial to you now, to them they are real.
Advice from a friend
Hamish, best friend to Fergus who was diagnosed with cancer, has some advice for other young people who have a friend going through childhood cancer.
You have to accept that things are going to be different. It may not be forever, it may only be for a little bit, but you may have to accept the things may be different forever.
“Keep an open communication channel, just talking to people about how you’re feeling, letting people know what’s going on. If you try and go it alone, it’s not going to go very well.
So just doing what you’ve always done with your best mate is the most important thing. There’s some familiarity to a horrible situation, a very foreign situation that a lot of people wouldn’t have been through before.”
How Redkite can help
Everyone’s experience with cancer is different. We’re here to listen to your individual needs so that we can help you better cope with the effects cancer has had on your life and emotions.
Redkite provides FREE counselling for teenagers and young people. You can talk to us once or twice, or more often if you need. It’s up to you.
You decide what you want to talk about – you set the agenda and the pace. It’s also completely confidential. Our social worker will begin by getting to know you, spend time chatting to you about the things that are on your mind and, if you like, will set a time to meet you again in future.
Counselling is available over the phone or online using Microsoft Teams. We can also meet face-to-face at one of our Redkite offices.
You can ask your Redkite team about online programs and how to connect with other teenagers and young people your age, who have been diagnosed with cancer.
Facing childhood cancer is hard for everyone connected to a diagnosed child. We are here to give you the information and support you need to help you through this challenging time.
Request information And support
We’re ready to help. Please call us on 1800 REDKITE (Mon – Fri 9am – 7pm AEST), or fill out the form below.
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