A place for men to talk about cancer

Beverly Beckham

The Boston Globe

The room looks like a private lounge at an airport. Nice carpet, good lighting, soft chairs, bright, colorful paintings, magazines and books, coffee and cookies.

The dozen men who sit here, all neatly dressed, look typical.

They talk. They laugh. They listen. They look as if they are discussing sports or politics or pubs in Dublin.

They are, in fact, discussing cancer. Their cancer.

I have been invited to join them, but only for tonight. They have arranged this meeting because they want other men to know about this haven, this place where, once every two weeks, they don't have to pretend, where they can admit they are not in charge of their lives and that not being in charge scares them.

Here's the thing about cancer. It leaps out of the shadows on an ordinary day. It attacks just like the assailant caught last month on camera beating up a California man as he walked to get his morning coffee. Out of the blue. Bam. Cancer does this. It pummels.

And it changes you.

Some of the men are in remission. Some are not. "When you get your diagnosis you immediately lose control over your life," one says and all agree. "You have to put a lot of trust in people you've never met before. The doctors are busy. They deal with the facts. In here we deal with the emotional side."

Their emotions are subdued. They are men. There are no mournful tones. But there is introspection. And sharing of information. What to expect physically, financially, emotionally. And there is laughter. Lots of laughter.

"If it wasn't for this group I couldn't have gotten through this," says one man. "It was one thing after the other. These guys kept me sane. One of the myths is that support groups are doom and gloom. This one is not."

There are other support groups, these men say. But not like this one. Other groups meet in hospitals, the last place they want to be. Other groups require consistent attendance. Here you can drop in.

Other support groups are heavily female. There the men are uncomfortable talking about their problems. Men are the problem-solvers, after all. How can they admit that cancer is a problem they are unable to solve? "The group gives us a place to vent and to share, the good and the bad."

The men meet every other Tuesday night from 6 to 8 in a suite at an office park in Norwell. Part of the national and international Cancer Support Community, the meetings, they say, sustain them. "We speak the same language."

Cancer, the men say, changes everything. People tiptoe around them. Friends ask, "How are you doing?" But most don't really want to know. "Most people don't know how to handle it."

They say they didn't know how to handle it, either. Until they got cancer.

"I wouldn't have read an article like the one you're going to write before I was diagnosed," one man tells me. "I wouldn't have understood. People don't pay attention to things like cancer until it affects them."

They talk about doing their time, keeping their head down, trying to keep everything as normal as possible. And they talk about the things that people can do to help. "Whatever you need," people say. "But it's hard to ask for help. Don't wait to be asked. Just do something."

One man received "a beautiful hand-written note." It made him feel good.

Another's neighbor "came down with his snow blower and cleared our driveway. Here's someone I didn't think thought twice about me."

Another, who isn't religious, said he was touched by prayers, "knowing that people are thinking of you."

Tim Cummings , the program director and a 31-year cancer survivor himself, facilitates the meetings. He says he wants more men to know that these meetings are free and that there are no strings attached.

"After cancer, life continues to go on. And you have to deal with it."

They learn how to deal with it here.

"The best cancer treatment out there is to love and be loved," one of the men says toward the end of the meeting. And the room gets suddenly quiet. And then the same man grins and adds, "And, of course, there's my kale shake every day."

And the room explodes with laughter.