COMFORTING RITUAL?

Reading this N Y TIMES article Losing a Comforting Ritual: Treatment I realized that what I`ve thought all along is so true. A lot of us find comfort in our cancer treatments.......we form a bond with our caregivers and some of us are happy like that. We look forward to going to our treatment as it's time to link our friends.
I`ve always felt that a lot of us use illness to get attention. We thrive on being ill, some of us cry wolf, wolf so often that we don`t even know when we are pretending and when it's real.....
We know what we call to us usually manifests,but we still succumb. Some treat it, as the man in the NY Times piece does as a habit,something to do and when it's not there we have withdrawal symptoms. Then there are the ones of us who don`t like being sick for a minute and do everything we can to bond with no one. Our bout with cancer is a bad memory....everything is in temporary mode, in other words "I`m here now but I`d rather be at work, so I need no one praying or fawning over me".....It's always harder for those around us because although we are the ones feeling the pain, our loved ones have this feeling of helplessness. Maybe treating going to do radiation as if we are going to a job helps all concerned, so maybe he has a point, but that's a "job" I need to lose quickly, just the smell of it all jars me into wanting to be better and quick.
Recently a close friend of mine died of cancer and the lesson I learnt out of it is we need a close friend going through it with us.......someone between us and the caregivers .... someone other than our spouse, they are usually too upset to focus. We need someone who knows our likes and dislikes before illness took us down..... someone who can tell us it's all right to let go as a lot of us fight to stay,and talk for us when the pain gets too much for us to communicate .... I notice Alana Hamilton was always at Farrah Fawcett's side, very important!