Responses to cancer

I have to say that I have found the response to my cancer news among certain sections of south asians - both family and friends - very strange. My mother has not informed anyone in my family with the exception of one cousin. And that was only under pressure from me. My cousin had been in touch by email in the past - but after the news - not a sausage. I had the mother of one childhood friend refuse to tell her son three times the news of my cancer etc. More on this weird stuff and my take on it some other day. I would also be grateful for any sociological analysis of this....

Today I came across a gulf news site. Cancer is a difficult subject everywhere but some places are more problematic than others it seems. Bahrain for example: women don't come forward if they suspect they have breast cancer. "We have a real social problem because some men have divorced their wives or married a second wife when their wives have been diagnosed."
Check it out here.