When I had breast cancer I had to have chemotherapy  . The hardest part of that entire experience was losing my hair. It was like having a tattoo  across my forehead that said "chemotherapy patient." I am a very active and athletic person, so to have people looking at me with pity as if I was an invalid was very hard to take. Of course they never said anything, but if I got in an elevator. Everyone looked away because they didn't know what to say. But I didn't blame them. The best compliment I ever received was when I was at work one day, wearing my scarf over my bald head, and a UPS guy came in to deliver a package. He looked me right in the eye and said, "So, are you on chemotherapy?" I said, "Yes, thank you for asking. You are the first person to actually acknowledge that fact." It felt so good to be talked to like a "real" person, without any pity, just the facts. I asked him what made him decide to say something, and he told me that a woman he worked with had just gone through the same thing several months before. I had some joke business cards that said my job title was "Supreme Commander of the Universe", so whenever this same UPS guy came to deliver a package, he would also say, "Hey, Supreme Commander, how is it going?" Then my company moved to a new location, and since that time I hadn't seen the UPS guy-Bryan- in probably two years. I went to answer my door at home one day, and there was Bryan with a package. Small world. "Hey, Supreme Commander, long time no see!" he said. He sees so many people all day long, every day, delivering packages but he remembered me after two years. What a great compliment! Of course, I remembered him, too, because he was the only person who could see me during that time when I was "the invisible woman." What was the author's attitude towards her cancer?
Surprised. Regretful. Positive. Depressed.