Janet's testimony started as a child of ten when her policeman father was shot dead. She accepted Christ at the age of eleven as her heavenly father in place of "my dearly loved earthly father" whom she had just lost. She is also a breast cancer survivor, and works with the Saddleback Church in USA. It gives her book authority.
More details on Janet are here:
http://www.womantowomanmentoring.com/cancersite/author.html
She gives a list of 13 things to do to help a cancer sufferer, and 13 things not to say. As cancer seems to scare some folk, and they are afraid they may offend us if they talk about it, I attach a few tips from that book that could help, along with some we found for ourselves:
Please do:
- Show Jan the love of God.
- Hug us around shoulder, not breasts! This cancer is not contagious!
- Keep normal contacts with Jan
- Show genuine compassion and concern
- Keep calling and leave a message, we love to hear from you
- Be patient, the illness and stress makes one forgetful, tired, etc.
- Stay in for the long haul, this takes months
- Talk about how God is loving and active, rather than talk about cancer.
- Feel free to share your healings, blessings etc. We are not so selfish we cannot rejoice with you even if Jan has a harder time.
- Tell us your concerns and needs. This illness has made us more aware of others' needs and deepened our prayer life. Don't think we have got enough on our plate, we would love to pray for you too.
We would rather you didn't
- Talk about others' breast cancer stories, good or bad. There are so many variations that there is at least a 90% chance they are irrelevant. We have 44 documented in Janet Thompson's book already, but we found we had to stop reading it!
- Tell us God has a plan for this - we know that already.
- Avoid Jan, it makes her feel rejected
- Act like nothing is happening, minimise the situation, or compare Jan to anyone else.
- Tell us that there are wonderful new drugs. The one discussed for Jan is over 50 years old, the patent expired and now it is made and used generically but has nasty side effects. After 5 years the side effects outweigh the benefits.
- Tell us treatment is wonderful these days. Radiotherapy is a mainstay of treatment, there is currently a study underway at Edinburgh University to see if radiotherapy offers any long term benefit at all. See http://www.cancerhelp.org.uk/trials/trials/selectsearch.asp?freetextsearch=prime&x=27&y=23&searchtype=freetext
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