When someone close to you who has cancer starts to talk about the disease, do you change the subject? Do you stand in silence, worried that you'll say the wrong thing? If so, you share these feelings with many others.

When talking with someone who has cancer, it is important to listen. Try to hear and understand what the person is saying about how he feels. Don't make light of what he is saying or try to change the way he is feeling or acting. Put your own feelings and fears aside. Let the person know that you are open to talking whenever he feels like talking. Or if the person doesn't feel like talking, that's OK, too.

Here we will share some ideas on how to be supportive and helpful when you talk with someone who has cancer. You can learn how to make the person with cancer know that he has someone he can truly count on. We call this kind of communication "listening with your heart."