Cancer Conundrum

Weird title, I know, but I need some advice.

I mentioned in a few recent posts about a close friend of mine who at 43 is dealing with a recurrence of cancer. It is now in multiple areas of her body (lungs, brain, and subcutaneous areas) and is undergoing extensive treatments to try and prolong her life. She has so far done several rounds of radiation to different areas and has now started chemo.

She is extremely lucky in that she hasn’t been too sick (so far) and has mostly been able to carry on with life, minus working. She has been able to be out and about with her family and friends and been ok, which is amazing. While we are close, I am not in the inner circle of her life as I once was, as our kids started different schools and activities and our career paths diverged, but we have always been able to pick right back up where we left off. I am sure we all have friends that fall in to that category.

So what I need help with is I don’t know how to communicate with her now that she is facing this huge hurdle and her life is taken up by something so huge. I mean, I reach out and check on her and ask/offer to do whatever she might need, and she will reach out with any new medical news but that is about it. I ask about her family and if they can use any help or support, she is forthcoming with personal info about her and everyone, but then that’s about it because I don’t know, there’s just only so much, I am praying for you, that must be hard, what can I do, how are you doings you can ask in one conversation.

I feel...guilty if I talk about anything going on in my life, and she doesn’t ask anything at all, not even a “how are you”. Which is fine, I mean, I don’t expect her to have much else on her mind, when she is literally fighting for her life. The one time I mentioned anything about me (I was saying how I understood a teen issue because my daughter had had a similar thing) she didn’t acknowledge any of that. So I just stopped mentioning anything going on over here, but then the conversation stops because idk I just don’t know what else to say.

I am not mad about it, but I am trying to figure out if I should just try and keep talking with talking about what’s going on in my life. Personally I feel very guilty and terrible if I do talk about it. I mean, it’s not like she is bedridden and not out and about doing fun fall activities with her family, but it feels like she has to do all these things because it’s likely the last time she will get to fall, not because it’s just that time of year to do them, if that makes sense. I don’t want to talk about my life and make her feel bad or worse in any way, but I don’t know how else to carry on the conversation. If she weren’t so sick I would know how to talk to her, but I feel like what she is going through changes everything, changes all the rules. I have tried to imagine what I would want, and I feel like I wouldn’t want to be treated or talked to differently, but then again I literally can’t imagine what it must be like facing the reality that you might have to say goodbye to the world way too soon.

Does anyone have any experience with a friend or family member who has gone through this? Or been the one who was sick yourself? I would love any kind of advice anyone has. This has been weighting on me for a while now.