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Navigating the dating world after a cancer diagnosis can be tricky. From the fear of disclosing a diagnosis to insecurities around bodily changes, to the emotional baggage patients feel they’re bringing into a relationship, diving back into the dating pool comes with its challenges. In this episode, Dr. Diane Reidy-Lagunes sheds light on the universality of these fears with advice from MSK psychologist Talia Zaider and cancer survivor Irene Dimatulac. Through personal anecdotes and expert insights, they provide a nuanced look at the dating experience for cancer survivors and offer guidance for how to move forward with readiness and self-love.
Listen to “A Woman’s Guide to Sex and Cancer”
Listen to “A Man’s Guide to Sex and Cancer”
Cancer Straight Talk from MSK is a podcast that brings together patients and experts to have straightforward evidence-based conversations. Memorial Sloan Kettering’s Dr. Diane Reidy-Lagunes hosts, with a mission to educate and empower patients and their family members.
If you have questions, feedback, or topic ideas for upcoming episodes, please email us at: [email protected]
Episode Highlights
How do you know when the time is right to start dating after a cancer diagnosis or treatment?
Readiness to start dating after any major stressor – whether it’s illness, divorce, a major loss – is a very personal and multifaceted decision. To expect or wait for a hundred percent readiness is probably not realistic, so make the distinction between being ready and being willing. Ask yourself, “Am I willing to go on dating websites and see what that feels like? Am I willing to share with a close friend that I’m thinking about dating? Am I willing to accept a social invitation to see people who I may not know that well?” Think about what kind of steps you feel most willing to make right now and allow for it to be a back-and-forth process.
During treatment you may often feel tired or find yourself alone. Learning to value that alone time – the value in taking a day to rest, not needing to go out every day or every weekend – may shift the values that you look for in a potential partner. Balancing your new values with the reality of the dating landscape (be patient!) will be very beneficial to not only your mindset but also your dating outcomes.
When should I tell someone I’m dating about my cancer experience?
There is no right or wrong time to tell a potential partner something as personal as your medical history. The telling itself will most likely be a process that unfolds over time rather than a one-time download of information. The patient may come with a kind of script of what to say, but the partner who’s listening doesn’t have that script, so it’s important to allow for the fact that it may be a conversation that needs revisiting several times. Try to leave the door open to that conversation.
Many patients decide to wait for a couple of dates until they’ve gotten to know someone or until they have some sense of their investment in the relationship before bringing up their cancer. For other patients, they want to bring it up right away to have it out in the open, possibly because there are visible physical characteristics resulting from treatment, or perhaps because they have an online presence that their date may have already seen. There is no “best” time to bring it up, so long as you’re honest when you eventually do.
How do I overcome the baggage I feel as a cancer patient? I feel like a burden on my partner.
It’s a question of what you are willing to accept as “baggage” versus not. A patient once said, “Cancer doesn’t have to be the most interesting thing about me.” You are the only one in charge of your identity and the stories you tell about yourself. Deciding when and how to disclose your story to your partner allows you to be in charge of how the story of your relationship gets written.
Despite all the fears that cancer brings about – the fears of prognosis, how your body might change, how your mental state might change, what your life will look like after – try to make the conscious decision to take baby steps toward showing yourself self-love. Say, “I love myself.” If you have a physical scar, try touching it with one finger, slowly at first. Take time each day to relax and block out your commitments. Be kind to yourself. These practices, and more, will create a center that you can build on over time.
If you do need help, reach out to your family, friends, a therapist’s office or online support group, or even an old friend on social media. If you feel you are a danger to yourself or others, call 800-273-TALK.
How should my partner and I discuss sex after cancer? What if I’m not ready for sex after cancer?
Physical changes in sexual functioning, fatigue or neuropathy can be a source of anxiety and friction in relationships of all types, both new couples and longstanding ones. What’s most important is communication. When living with unwanted physical changes, couples should try to expand their definitions of intimacy and connection and be very intentional about defining the things that constitute a close relationship. Acknowledge that some of those criteria may not be available in the same way it was before. Even if consensus is not achieved, the simple act of communicating openly and honestly – as well as responding to one another’s concerns in an empathic and validating way – is a major relief to most couples and empowers them to do the kind of problem solving that needs to be done in order to make the adjustments.
How do I handle the fear or rejection?
The fear of being rejected is a very common human fear. The outcome of any communication process, certainly the telling about a cancer experience or diagnosis, is going to depend as much on the person who’s speaking as it does on the person who’s listening. Studies from MSK and elsewhere show that among couples who are coping with a cancer diagnosis, one partner’s disclosure of feelings and thoughts related to cancer only benefits the relationship if there’s a listener who’s in turn responsive, caring and understanding. The response depends on so many different factors that may or may not have anything to do with the patient personally, so rather than take sole responsibility for how something goes, use it as a reflection of the health of the relationship and who your partner is. It could be telling us something more about the relationship and whether it’s worth pursuing.
Advice on dating from past cancer patients:
“If you had asked me during my treatment if I wanted to talk to someone, I would’ve said, ‘No, I’m fine. I got this.’ Then about a year later, the reality set in. I reached out to my social worker and said, ‘I think I need help.’ They worked to get me a psychiatrist and a therapist. That is one of the best decisions I’ve ever made in terms of my cancer treatment.”
“Obviously if you’re not feeling like yourself, it might be difficult to go into a relationship. But once you’re in a position where you feel good about everything, I think just go for it because you never know what could happen. As long as that other person is okay with it and you have a lot of communication, I don’t see why you wouldn’t pursue that and be happy. A lot of people have dealt with cancer, whether it’s themselves, a friend, a family member, so you never know. Someone might really understand the situation, so I wouldn’t be afraid to discuss it.”
“You have to have a strong support system. You have to find something or even go out by yourself to keep yourself grounded. Join a group, hit up an old friend, even one of your old Facebook friends or something, just to help you through that phase.”
“Be truthful out of the gate, accept yourself first then go out and have fun.”
“I would encourage everyone to look for connection and community in a variety of different ways, whether it’s dating or support groups or close friendships, because connections are become a refuge for all of us.”
“You have fought for so long and so hard. You are worthy of nothing but the best love that you want in life. If you have that fear of rejection, I have to say, those people will weed themselves out faster than you can say, ‘Hello’ or ‘Happy Valentine’s Day.’ It will only open up the possibilities that are meant for you.”
Show transcript
Dr. Diane Reidy-Lagunes:
Today we're talking about the challenges and fears around dating after a cancer diagnosis, and you all had a lot to say about that:
Jennifer:
Dating in your twenties was like the norm and it's nothing, and then you enter your thirties and you start to get worried, and then cancer gets added in and it completely blows it up. You know, it's like, "Hey, I'm coming at you with like infertility."
Sam:
I was struggling with like, When do you tell someone about it? It's a lot to unload on a person on a first date.
Charisma:
With my double mastectomy, they had to remove my nipples. So because I'm like, "Oh my God, I don't want to show you," I would keep my bra on, I would keep my wig on. It's really scary.
Alex:
I think I showed up on a couple dates with a cane and then it was just sort of awkward. So then I just started sending this preemptive text. I would say, "Hey just FYI, don't be weirded out, but I walk with a cane. I have cancer. They had to cut my pelvis out. Everything's normal."
Dr. Diane Reidy-Lagunes:
Today on the pod: knowing when you're ready to date, when to disclose your diagnosis, dealing with the insecurities around intimacy and rejection. Let's talk about it.
Hello, I'm Dr. Diane Reidy-Lagunes from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and welcome to Cancer Straight Talk. We're bringing together national experts and patients fighting these diseases to have evidence-based conversations. Our mission is to educate and empower you and your family members to make the right decisions and live happier, healthier lives. For more information on the topics discussed here, or to send us your questions, please visit us at mskcc.org/podcasts.
Today we welcome Dr. Talia Zaider to the show. She's a clinical psychologist here at MSK with expertise in couples and family therapy. Dr. Zaider works with couples including early on in the relationship to help them navigate dating after a difficult diagnosis. She also gives them guidance on how to overcome insecurities through open communication and transparency. We are also joined by Irene Dimatulac, a 28-year-old who was diagnosed with stage two osteosarcoma during her second semester of grad school. She underwent treatment at MSK in 2020 and is now thankfully cancer-free. She's currently in a relationship and she's here to share her experience with us. Talia and Irene, thank you so much for being here with us and welcome to the show.
Irene Dimatulac:
Thank you for having us.
Dr. Talia Zaider:
Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here.
Dr. Diane Reidy-Lagunes:
We'll start off with the decision to jump back into dating after you're diagnosed. How do you know when the time is right? Let's hear from Grace who was diagnosed with adrenal cancer when she was 18. She's now 27 and happily engaged.
Grace:
I didn't really want to jump into a relationship until I knew I was healthy. And especially with Jimmy, I didn't want him to have to lose me, you know, putting it bluntly, if I didn't survive. So by the time we started dating, I knew that the immunotherapy was working. We definitely had a lot of long talks before jumping into it, and we made sure that this was going to be a long-term thing before we made that decision.
Dr. Diane Reidy-Lagunes:
Talia, what are some of the common issues and concerns that people have when they're considering dating after a cancer diagnosis?
Dr. Talia Zaider:
Right, so that's a good question. So in general, readiness to start dating after any major stressor – whether it's illness, divorce, a major loss – is, you know, as you'd guess, a very personal and sort of multifaceted decision. It's a hard place to be because by its very nature, starting a new relationship is often such an ambiguous and unpredictable kind of experience and can feel very risky. So because of that, to expect or wait for a hundred percent readiness is probably not realistic. What I like to do is sort of make the distinction between being ready and being willing. So am I willing to, for example, get online and take a look at dating websites and just see what that feels like? Am I willing to share with a close friend that I'm thinking about dating? Am I willing to accept a social invitation to see people who I may not know that well? So I would think about what kind of steps I feel most willing to make right now and allow for the fact that that will be a back-and-forth kind of process.
In terms of the most common concerns that I hear from people living with cancer, when it comes to dating or starting any relationship, they sort of fall into two different categories. One set of concerns often has to do with what we might call kind of interpersonal fears. So how will it go between me and my dating partner? Will we talk about my cancer history? If so, when and how? How will the effects of cancer or cancer treatment sort of impact the way that we relate to one another, emotionally and physically? And the second kind of concerns that I often hear about – that can be very difficult – have more to do with my internal experience and sort of subjective experience of dating again. So how confident am I feeling? How attractive am I feeling? How desirable do I feel? What is it like to be in my own body now? And how have I been making sense of these changes, and how these sort of fit into how I see myself right now?
Dr. Diane Reidy-Lagunes:
Yeah, absolutely. And Irene, you were open to a new relationship but you were hesitant about the dating. Could you share with us that experience?
Irene Dimatulac:
Yeah, sure. Those factors that you speak of definitely hit home. Before I started cancer treatment, I definitely had expectations of how my life would go at 25: being in a serious relationship, getting engaged by a certain age, getting married and having kids. And then this unexpected diagnosis on the second day of my grad school semester just completely broke that foundation under me. And cancer treatment, especially during Covid, was a very lonely experience and a very reconstructive experience in not only the medical sense, but also in my self-identity and how I would picture that journey going forward. I knew that I wanted to be in a relationship, but after finishing cancer treatment, I didn't quite know who I was now coming out of it. For example, prior to treatment I was definitely the going-out-every-night type. And during treatment I had bouts of feeling tired often, getting used to having alone time, and even learning to value that alone time and learning the value in taking a day to rest and not needing to go outside every day. So those tiny decisions turned into fundamental shifts and also changed the values that I looked for in a potential partner: balancing those values with also the reality of the dating landscape sometimes, just giving people time to show how amazing they are and not expecting all of those things off the bat, like falling in love with Prince Charming on the first date.
Dr. Diane Reidy-Lagunes:
That's for everyone, right? I think it's hard for all of us to fall in love with Prince Charming on the first date, but I think you nailed it. Like it or not, when we go through a sort of moment or chapter like cancer, it does change who you are. But clearly you don't want it to define you as the person you are. And I think that is a challenging aspect of dating with cancer: trying to decide not only, "This is my new me," but how do you tell that partner that this is what you went through, as you said? And so we're going to hear from Alex and Sam. Alex had a Ewing sarcoma and Sam actually had thyroid cancer. So they both had cancer and they actually didn't know each other's cancer diagnosis when they first matched. And they discuss how visible versus invisible scars may play a role in how soon you disclose to your partner. Let's take a listen.
Alex:
If you have a very visible remnant of your treatment, sometimes that forces your hand. If you don't have hair, if you have a cane or a limp or whatever. I had a part of my pelvis cut out and so I walk with a cane now, and so I ended up just mentioning cancer upfront right before I meet someone.
Sam:
I was very lucky that I didn't have to disclose my cancer diagnosis. And so when we met I was not going to tell you anything. I had no plans to. And then you told me about yours and then it was like the floodgate opened.
Dr. Diane Reidy-Lagunes:
Talia, how do you help patients decide when the right time is to share such information?
Dr. Talia Zaider:
That's a very common question that comes up. There really is no sort of precise right or wrong time. I can tell you that many patients I talk to make the decision to wait for, let's say, a couple of dates or until they've gotten to know someone or have some sense of their investment in a relationship before they decide to bring it up. For some patients, they really want to bring it up right away to kind of have it out there upfront. And that could be because, for example, there are very visible physical characteristics resulting from treatment that they don't want to wait to have to explain. I've met people who have just been very involved in advocacy or community-based efforts related to cancer. So there's an online presence and they decide that they want to sort of preempt anything that someone might find online and just be very upfront about their cancer experience. Or that it's just very hard to wait. So there's a real sort of "It depends" here.
I think one of the things that I often will remind people of is that the telling itself is really a process that unfolds over time rather than sort of a one-time kind of download of information. We may come to this with a kind of script of what we want to say, but of course the partner who's listening to this on the other end doesn't necessarily have that script. And so we want to allow for the fact that this is a conversation that we might revisit and come back to it, and leave some space open to just learn about what this means to us.
Dr. Diane Reidy-Lagunes:
Absolutely. Irene, how did you make that decision to disclosure diagnosis?
Irene Dimatulac:
A year after finishing treatment, I decided to go back on the dating apps. Disclosing my identity as a cancer patient was on the forefront of my mind every day. As an osteosarcoma survivor, I have a full knee implant and I have a visible limp from it and a very prominent one-and-a-half-foot scar front and center on my leg. It wasn't something that I could hide. And during my cancer treatment, I learned to embrace it, and embracing it is still a process. So I started off with putting, "I survived cancer" front and center as one of the traits on my dating profile. I felt that being a cancer patient on the day-to-day was the most prominent trait of my identity at the time. I myself run my own cancer support group online, as well as being a part of the support groups through MSK, and it wasn't something that I wanted to hide, nor did I feel like I could hide, but I also consciously chose not to hide it. But as I got out of treatment and so many other traits of my personality came to the top like, "Oh right, I'm also Filipino American. I'm a speech therapist. I'm an avid student." Suddenly being a cancer patient felt like it moved from the forefront back to finding a home with all of the other things that made me, me. It was still something that I disclosed early on in the relationship, but I definitely did it more when I felt comfortable.
Dr. Diane Reidy-Lagunes:
A hundred percent. You own it, right? It's part of who you are. Let's hear from Charisma who was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer and had a double mastectomy.
Charisma:
I already had enough time taken away from me going through all this. I don't want more time to be stolen from me 'cause you want to waste my time. So I tell people first honestly because it's like, I have to deal with my baggage 'cause I don't have a choice. You're coming into my life, you have a choice to deal with it or not. So I'm not going to like, string you along and then like, drop this bomb on you and hope you stay around. It's just a really weird place to be.
Dr. Diane Reidy-Lagunes:
As Charisma talks about, people who have cancer often ask themselves, "Am I going to be seen as having baggage?" Talia, how do you help patients work through this?
Dr. Talia Zaider:
One thing that comes to mind when you say that is something a patient once shared with me who is starting to date, when he said, "Cancer doesn't have to be the most interesting thing about me." And that makes me think again about this issue of sort of identity and the story we tell about ourselves. So much of dating is about kind of curating the parts of ourselves that we want to show up and the parts of ourselves we might hesitate to share with others. There's probably not a person alive who doesn't have some parts of themselves that they might worry about exposing or sharing with someone, particularly early in a relationship. And frankly, even in very long-term relationships – I've worked with couples who have been married 40, 50 years – there are still surprises. There are still stories that haven't been heard. So I think that kind of perspective can sometimes help in just feeling a little bit more in charge of how you write that story.
Dr. Diane Reidy-Lagunes:
I love that. We also spoke to Tom, who's in his sixties with some life experience under his belt, and he shares his approach on this idea of baggage.
Tom:
I cannot compare myself to how I would react in my twenties or thirties, but when people go into dating in advanced age after your late forties, the anticipation is that people have baggage of some kind. So it's just a question of what baggage you are willing to accept versus not.
Dr. Diane Reidy-Lagunes:
Irene, have you had such issues in terms of navigating feelings like that?
Irene Dimatulac:
Oh, definitely. With all of the changes to my schedule and the way that my life has gone, I haven't come out without my scars in my baggage, definitely. Treatment during Covid especially brought about the necessity to build a loving relationship with myself because I spent so much time in isolation that all of my fears, all of these monsters that the diagnosis of cancer and that treatment brings about – the fears of prognosis, how my body would change, how my mental state would change, what my life would look like after – just all came to the forefront with nobody else to really distract me from those things.
I had to learn to make the conscious decision to take baby steps to show myself self-love, to choose self-love and not only just say, “I love myself,” but learning the little ways to do that for myself. Sometimes it was, if I was afraid of how my new scar looked, it was just taking a deep breath and just touching it with one finger. That was what self-love looked like. These practices helped me create a center that I continue to build on, to carry that baggage for myself. And also if I do need help, I've had such loving support around me from MSK, my family, my friends, my boyfriend, to reach out when I need it, but they're also great in reminding me of how well I've carried it myself that I also don't need to all the time.
Dr. Diane Reidy-Lagunes:
Right. Really great advice for all of us on how we can be kinder to ourselves. What about when you're in a relationship but you still have this nagging sense of, "Am I letting my partner down?" Maybe it's because of changes to sexual function, scars, reconstruction. This can all absolutely affect a patient's confidence in their own bodies. We're going to hear from Jennifer. She's 38 years old and has a history of stage 4 colorectal cancer. She's been very open and honest about her experience, even blogging and normalizing this for others.
Jennifer:
The first time I slept with someone during treatment, the first couple times were not successful just because my body had not physically healed and I could not physically go through the act of sex. And it was painful and it hurt. And I'm worried about my port, "Is my scar a turnoff?" And then this happens and that's really hard. Mentally I was ready, but physically my body was saying no. And if your partner is not understanding, then you're with the wrong partner.
Dr. Diane Reidy-Lagunes:
Talia, I think this resonates with a lot of our listeners and a lot of patients that we care for. How do you counsel patients that are going through these troubling difficulties of feeling confident about yourself and just the ability – either physically and or emotionally – to be ready to have sex with your partner or with someone you're dating?
Dr. Talia Zaider:
Yeah. So first of all – just to normalize that – so much of that comes with the territory of the cancer experience for so many people, whether they're in a new relationship, looking for a new relationship or again, even in very longstanding, stable, loving relationships. These kinds of physical changes – changes in sexual functioning, even things like fatigue or neuropathy – can be a real source of anxiety and friction sometimes in relationships. So you know what becomes really important here is communication. And I think that when we're living with unwanted physical changes, a lot of the interventions that we use with couples have to do with expanding our definitions of intimacy, connection; and being very intentional and thoughtful together about what constitutes sort of a good close relationship, what goes into that, and that the things we might have counted on before might not be available to us in the same way.
So communication becomes really important and being able to talk about this stuff openly and honestly – and to respond to one another's concerns also in an empathic and validating way – can be difficult at first, but often can be a very, very, very big relief and also empower a couple to do the kind of problem solving that needs to be done in order to make the adjustments.
Dr. Diane Reidy-Lagunes:
A hundred percent. And for those that may be going through something like this, I just want to point out that we do have past episodes on sexual health and dysfunction and some solutions. So take a listen, for both women and men's sexual health.
One of the biggest fears that we've heard from our listeners and our patients is the fear of rejection. Talia, how do you help your patients with that insecurity and fear of rejection? I mean, again, that's something that we all fear, but certainly with the additive challenges that go along with a cancer diagnosis, it's that much more powerful.
Dr. Talia Zaider:
Yeah. So first of all – again, just to normalize that – the fear of being rejected is such a human and such a common fear. I think it's important to recognize that the outcome of any communication process, certainly the telling about a cancer experience or diagnosis, is going to depend as much on you as the person who's speaking as it does on the person who's listening on the other end. In fact, there's some studies that have been done here at MSK and elsewhere showing that among couples who are coping with a cancer diagnosis, one partner's disclosure of feelings and thoughts related to cancer only benefits the relationship if there's a listener who's also in turn responsive, caring, understanding; which is sort of an intuitive idea, but I think important to remind ourselves that the way these kinds of conversations go really depend on two people, and that the way in which a person is going to respond can really depend on so many different factors that may or may not have anything to do with ourselves personally. So I think to not take sole responsibility for how something goes and to use that as a kind of reflection of who we are or who our partner is, when it really could be telling us something more about the relationship and whether this is a relationship that is right for us at this point.
Dr. Diane Reidy-Lagunes:
Absolutely. And Irene, you had said that you just decided to take it slow, you just wanted to be friends in the beginning, you weren't sure if you even wanted to jump in. Did fear weigh into that decision or was something else going on?
Irene Dimatulac:
Well, I think early on the fear was just that I wouldn't have the time to invest a lot of my energy into relationship, especially dealing with my side of treatment and just all the energy expenditure that goes into that, just into trying to make it through each day. Something that was very beneficial to our relationship after we started dating a year after my treatment is that we already, from the very beginning since we met, had a very open relationship where actually our first phone conversation was my disclosure of my cancer diagnosis and my anxiety around that after two weeks of texting. And so during my treatment, he was always an available listening ear. Even now, we just have a very open dialogue about pretty much any issue. So related to my boyfriend, there was no fear of rejection, as we already established a pattern of open communication through the worst of it, so that we only have all the better things to talk about now.
Dr. Diane Reidy-Lagunes:
Great. We'd like to leave our listeners with some advice from the patients we reached out to. They share what they would've liked to have known or heard when first dating after their diagnosis.
Jennifer:
If you had asked me during my treatment if I wanted to talk to someone, I would've said, "No, I'm fine. Like, I got this." And then about a year later, the reality set in and I had reached out to my social worker like, "I think I need help." They worked to get me a psychiatrist and a therapist. That, I think, is one of the best decisions I've ever made in terms of my cancer treatment.
Grace:
Obviously if you're not feeling like yourself, it might be difficult to go into a relationship. But I think once you're in a position where you feel good about everything, I think just go for it 'cause you never know what could happen and as long as that other person is okay with it and you have a lot of communication, I don't see why you wouldn't pursue that and be happy. A lot of people have dealt with cancer, whether it's themselves, a friend, a family member, so you never know. Someone might really understand the situation, so I wouldn't be afraid to discuss it.
Charisma:
You have to have like a strong support system. You have to find something or even go out by yourself to keep yourself grounded, or even join a group, hit up an old friend, even one of your old like Facebook friends or something, just to help you through that phase.
Tom:
Be truthful out of the gate, accept yourself first and go out and have fun. That's the bottom line.
Dr. Diane Reidy-Lagunes:
That's the bottom line. Talia, any parting words for our listeners?
Dr. Talia Zaider:
Yeah look, I think the desire for connection and intimacy and partnership and companionship, all of that is so essential to our survival and to our wellbeing. And without close relationships, we don't do well. We don't thrive. We don't withstand adversity. I would encourage everyone to look for that and to find connection and community in a variety of different ways, whether it's dating or support groups or close friendships, because I do think that that becomes a kind of refuge for all of us, particularly I think for our patients who are trying to figure out sort of their place in a sense after cancer.
Dr. Diane Reidy-Lagunes:
Irene, anything else you want to add?
Irene Dimatulac:
Yeah. Especially for our listeners who are currently going through treatment or have finished treatment: you have fought for so long and you've fought so hard. You are worthy of nothing but the best love that you want in life. If you have that fear of rejection, I have to say, those people will weed themselves out faster than you can say, "Hello" or "Happy Valentine's Day." It'll only open up the possibilities that are meant for you.
Dr. Diane Reidy-Lagunes:
Absolutely. You are worth it. You be you! Talia and Irene, thank you so much for being with us today. We learned a lot from both of you.
Dr. Talia Zaider:
Thank you.
Irene Dimatulac:
Thank you for having us.
Dr. Diane Reidy-Lagunes:
And thank you to all the brave patients who shared their experiences with us for this episode: Jennifer, Grace, Charisma, Tom, Alex and Sam.
Thank you for listening to Cancer Straight Talk from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. For more information or to send us any questions you may have, please visit us at mskcc.org/podcast. Help others find this helpful resource by rating and reviewing this podcast at Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Any products mentioned on this podcast are not official endorsements by Memorial Sloan Kettering. These episodes are for you but are not intended to be a medical substitute. Please remember to consult your doctor with any questions you have regarding medical conditions. I'm Dr. Diane Reidy-Lagunes. Onward and upward.