Time now for a refresher from my Dr. Laura Call of the Day archives. Remember, you can hear my live

radio program weekdays 2 to 5 p.m. Eastern Time on Sirius XM Triumph, 111.

Linda, welcome to the program. Hi, Dr. Laura. Thank you for taking my call.

You're welcome.

I'm confused about how to reconcile my husband's wish to keep his cancer diagnosis and treatment private and mine to, I don't know if it's a need or a wish or a desire or what, you know, to tell a close friend or to confide in someone. For example, he had surgery two days ago and I was in the hospital with him. It's a huge medical center.

You know, 10,000 people are there. And I heard my name and it happened to be a friend who I haven't seen for a couple

years, but we were very close, and we'd taken trips together and things.

And she wanted to know why I was there, how things are going, and what do I tell her?

So I confided in her, but I didn't tell him that I confided in her because he doesn't want

anyone to know.

So I don't know.

I don't know how to how to reconcile those things. You have any, well, because I think some

lies are necessary in life. Yeah. He wants this kept under wraps because he thinks there's some magic in that and that if a lot of friends and relatives and neighbors come over and say, poor baby, that that's more dire that he's not going to survive it.

So having a lot of people know makes it more real.

Yeah.

But you have needs too because you're his caretaker and his support system.

And to do that, you don't have infinite ability to be caretaking without filling yourself

back up again.

So if this is a woman, a friend, you can trust.

Mm-hmm.

You need to do that.

Yeah, I mean, it was tough to relieve to me.

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