Beware the Cancer Ghosts

Photo: Yana Iskayeva/Getty Images

The warnings came immediately, fast and often: Beware the cancer ghosts. I was 35 and had just been diagnosed with breast cancer. The phrase felt morbid, conjuring an image of someone who had died from the disease lingering in the shadows of my hospital room, haunting me with guilt for surviving.

“When I had cancer, my best friend stopped speaking to me,” a woman told me. “I haven’t heard from her since.”

“I had a friend who was so involved during my treatment...