Welcoming the Stranger to the Land of Cancer:
The world of cancer care is a strange land to a person newly diagnosed with cancer. Like someone who leaves the familiarity of home and arrives in a foreign place, the person with cancer loses equilibrium and feels lost, experiences an assault on self-identity, and encounters an alien language and c...
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| Format: | Others |
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ScholarWorks @ UVM
2011
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| Online Access: | http://scholarworks.uvm.edu/graddis/137 http://scholarworks.uvm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1136&context=graddis |
| Summary: | The world of cancer care is a strange land to a person newly diagnosed with cancer. Like someone who leaves the familiarity of home and arrives in a foreign place, the person with cancer loses equilibrium and feels lost, experiences an assault on self-identity, and encounters an alien language and culture. It is this person who knocks as a stranger on the door of cancerland. Many philosophic and religious traditions obligate those receiving the stranger to provide a deep hospitality. One model of the practice of deep hospitality is summarized as door, table, space. When applied to the relationship between the cancer care provider and the patient/stranger, this hospitality can humanize the experience for both parties and is education in its elemental sense of drawing out and leading forth—into healing and wisdom. |
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