Some follow on responses to my comment about how friends accept you when I replied to Hooper's question on supplements, healthunlocked.com/cllsuppo... , prompted me to look further into the way our friends react when they learn we have cancer. That's how I found this gem by Karen Ritchie M.D., who has identified the following categories of friends: Preachers, Clueless, Bolters, Angels and Fellow Travelers.
When you are diagnosed with cancer, strange things happen to other people. Cancer will probably change you, but it also changes people around you, people you thought you knew..."
cancerlynx.com/angelsbolter... (Well worth a read.)
And why is this the case when cancer is so common? I'd heard figures of around 20%, but it is now around 40%!!
cancerresearchuk.org/cancer...
Interestingly, when I entered "what proportion of people g" into Google, the autocomplete gave the top response as "what proportion of people get cancer" ahead of "go to university" or "get married".
Obviously we're a group of fellow travellers here, but I'm pleased to see we also have many, many angels.
What's been your experience?
Neil
PS For those that have looked at the Cancer Research UK website, CLL falls into the WHO | International Classification of Diseases (ICD) Leukaemia C91 - C95 group: (ICD-10-CM Diagnosis Codes > Neoplasms C00-D49 > Malignant neoplasms of lymphoid, hematopoietic and related tissue C81-C96 > Lymphoid leukemia C91-) and has the diagnostic code 91.1. This doesn't include those of us with Small Lymphocytic Lymphoma (coded 83.0) and that dual disease nature really upset the coding system. Read the below for more if you are interested: