MSI Press Blog

  Denial is a normal first reaction to life‑threatening news. Kübler‑Ross described it as a shock absorber — the mind’s way of letting in the truth one teaspoon at a time. Most of us eventually move from “this can’t be happening” to “okay, what now.” What I’m watching in my own neighborhood, though, goes far beyond that early protective fog. It’s denial hardened into a lifestyle, and it’s frightening. Two of my neighbors — I’ll call them Cheryl and Maria — have both been diagnosed with early‑stage, treatable cancers. The kind where modern medicine has a strong track record. The kind where early action matters. The kind where “I feel fine” is not a reliable compass. And yet both have stopped going to their doctors. Cheryl was diagnosed with early leukemia. She tells me she feels perfectly normal, so she’s not worried. Maria was diagnosed with early cervical cancer. Same story: she feels fine, so she’s not going back. They’ve both returned to their routines as if nothing has ch...

  They weren’t close before. Just two of my neighbors, one downstairs, one in the next lot. Young mothers in their mid-thirties, each with two children, each newly diagnosed—one with uterine cancer, one with lymphoma. Now they spend long evenings together. Drinking. Laughing. Talking about men, though both are married. Not about cancer. Never about cancer. They slip into a kind of fantasy hour—where the diagnoses don’t exist, where their bodies haven’t betrayed them, where they’re still the girls they used to be. Or maybe the girls they never got to be. It’s not denial in the dramatic sense. It’s something softer, sadder. A shared numbness. A counter-life. They get drunk too fast to talk about anything real. And maybe that’s the point. The rest of us—neighbors, friends, watchers—feel the pull. We want to speak. We want to say, Please don’t wait too long. But we also know they won’t hear it. Not now. Not in this fragile world they’ve built together. So we hover in the silence...