I found a book called Cancer Etiquette. The book was written by a woman who is a survivor of multiple myeloma and breast cancer. In this manners guide to cancer you can find advice on what to say to a cancer patient and what not to say. For example, only say "you look terrific" if the person really does look terrific.

The author Rosanne Kalick also tells us that we should be more specific when offering help to a cancer patient. Don't just say that you're there for them. Offer to do something tangible like cook a meal or baby-sit the kids. Rosanne talks about the distressing comments sometimes said to cancer patients and offers helpful advice on what should be said instead.

This book would be very helpful to caregivers, friends or family members of loved ones dealing with a life threatening illness.

I wrote another post a few days ago called Things not to say to a cancer patient. Well, here are some great things that were said to me when I was going through my cancer journey. These things helped tremendously!

• I will drive you to your chemo treatment.
• Here is some dinner I made for you and your husband.
• I would love to go wig shopping with you.
• Call me any time and I'll be here to talk.
• You still look beautiful to me bald.
• Here are some xanax!
• Can I give you a foot rub?
• Sure, I can take your nipple off and move it to where it belongs (plastic surgeon).
• I'll drive 2 hours to your house and go with you and stay while you get your breast biopsy and wait for the results.
• Hang in there.
• I love you.

Battling cancer reframes life, written by Susan T. Lindau, speaks to my personal experience of cancer diagnosis and treatment. It may speak to your cancer experience as well. Although Lindau was diagnosed with stomach cancer, and I diagnosed with breast cancer, there are similarities that transcend the particulars of what cancer has been diagnosed.

Such as learning to wait. In an old diary entry I wrote during the time I was undergoing treatment, "if I am always on time for my appointments, why is the doctor never on time to see me." This came out of the regularity of sitting for at least two hours -- no I do not exaggerate the length of time -- beyond the time I was scheduled to see the doctor before I ever saw the doctor.

I, too, had an excellent team of physicians and nurses. I attribute their care with making it to cancer survivorship -- but there is at least one physician or nurse you are likely to meet along the way, who, in lacking good bedside manners or intelligent wisdom, really should be in a different profession. Physicians and nurses are human, and cancer scares a good many human beings. But if you are in the medical profession, allowing cancer to intimidate you is not good for the patient. As a cancer patient, you learn to reject such negativity in all its subtle forms. You learn to be an outspoken advocate for your cancer care.

Your medical team needs to believe in your cancer survivorship.

Lindau talks about learning new social skills that were not really a result of any intention to good manners as they were an inner drive of anger and resolve to fight cancer -- and to do whatever needed to be done to make it through to the other side. Battling cancer reframes life is very well-written and could only have been written by someone who has experienced a cancer diagnosis and gone through treatment.

Can you teach empathy and compassion? If you are a parent, the answer is yes. As a parent, you teach empathy and compassion to your children by the example of treating them with empathy and compassion; and in involving them in acts of compassion in the care for others. I believe caring for a pet in the home is one of the traditional ways of helping children learn empathy and compassion. Another is family participation in volunteerism and community-betterment projects.

Can you teach empathy and compassion to medical students as a university course? Medical schools are willing to try, and are hiring actors to train doctors good bedside manners when they have to give bad news. "A lot of these medical students are brainiacs who can absorb all the information they learn in class, but they don't know how to talk to people,'' says Joshua Stager, program coordinator at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York.

I think that is an over-generalization, and slightly less-than-generous statement in reference to the character and demeanor of all medical students -- but then again -- if you have watched the television show House, maybe a course in bedside manner is a very good thing for some medical students. Medical schools see enough of a need for education in empathy and compassion they are requiring these classes as part of medical training. Interestingly, a new section of a medical student's national licensing exam now includes tests on bedside manner.