Table 2.

Examples of different types of cancer-related conversations.

Type of Cancer Conversation	Example
Emotional Disclosure	Patient: Like I was gonna jump right out of my own skin if I had one more thing that was agitating me. And I just, I just needed to close my eyes and zone out. I had just had it. That is why I didn’t call anybody yesterday. I didn’t-- nothing even. And I just, I couldn’t. I just knew I would either fall apart or be snappy or be whatever. Spouse: And then to complicate matters I had hand surgery and could hardly grip the steering wheel, but there was no one else, so it’s those kinds of things, yes. Um, you can’t ever foresee that, and so that would never have come up during your chemotherapy, you know, because you’re so focused on ‘ok it’s chemo day, we’ve got to get there.’
Informational Conversation	Patient: Who? No... Xxx dies at eighty after a battle with breast cancer. That’s not that old. Spouse: They said she was at the cancer center and uh University of Arizona Cancer Center. She’d gone online and checked her out so we knew that she’d had a fellowship at USF.
Supportive Interaction	Patient: You don’t do, uh, hard manual work anymore. Not much. But oh yes you clean house. You clean house like a mad bandit. Especially since I’ve been sick. Spouse: I think your hair looks cute, dearest. I noticed that it’s changed of course, but we’ll go through and get past that, not worried about it. And if not we’ll live with it the way it is, not a big deal.