Sometimes, client relationships take a dramatic turn. Recently, one of my clients revealed he has been diagnosed with prostate cancer and was undergoing radiation treatments. Additionally, his wife, who retired a month prior, is now dealing with lung cancer and is not expected to survive beyond six months. That’s when the smiles, jovial behavior and normal conversations about grandkids and golf evaporated.

If you ever find yourself in a similar situation, when a client's circumstances change his or her retirement in a shocking fashion, the way you respond can make a major difference in both your client’s overall well-being and in your practice.  

Right away, I could see and feel the angst in my client. Not only is he having to adjust to his wife now being home with him every day, he also faces everything that comes with being and helping a cancer patient: endless phone calls to doctors and insurance companies … weekly travel to his own time-consuming radiation treatments … scheduling and chauffeuring his wife to her many appointments … and duties as a full-time caregiver to a spouse who is not herself for at least a week after chemo treatments, and doesn’t want to be around family and friends because of effects on her overall appearance.  

So what should an advisor say and do when a client discloses a life-changing event? More important, what shouldn’t he or she say or do? I am fortunate in that I was a social worker before becoming a financial professional, which provided essential training for situations like this, but I also wanted to take things a step further so I reached out to cancer survivors and therapists for their suggestions on how an advisor should react when a client reveals this kind of major life change. 

In this particular case, I shared my immediate thinking and feelings. “I’m sorry to hear about both you and your wife,” I said. “I can’t imagine what you must be going through.” His reply made me comfortable enough to ask how he was coping, and suffice it to say he didn’t proceed to paint a beautiful picture.  Instead of depicting love-filled moments with long, heartwarming embraces, he shared a variety of frustrations and even anger at the situation.  The reality is, events like these are filled with ups and downs, and this was his opportunity to vent what he was thinking and feeling. Imagine: A couple has spent a lifetime working, saving and planning for the easy, stress-free life of retirement, only to discover that it’s become anything but that. 

As Dr. Alicia H. Clark, a licensed clinical psychologist from Washington, D.C., points out, “A cancer diagnosis can be traumatic and it’s OK to acknowledge a person feeling out of control, broken or betrayed.”  “It isn’t fair,” she concedes. Within the context of retirement, especially, which most people spend a lifetime working towards.  “It’s helpful,” says Clark, “to recognize that with a client and let them start to accept and move beyond the initial diagnosis.” 

The most important thing is to not give advice or dwell on any negative implications inherent in the situation. “Immediately telling them what they need or should do is overwhelming, and can be disempowering,” says Clark. Never, for example, tell them they need to see this or that doctor, or how someone you know was supposed to die from cancer, but took some alternative medicine and is now in remission. “The last thing the patient wants to think about is another doctor’s appointment or extra step in an already complicated process,” adds Clark. Eventually, there may be a time for these kinds of discussions, but during the initial conversation, your advice should be limited to your area of expertise: financial matters. 

As with most sensitive discussions, the second phase is to ask how you can help. It’s ingrained in most of us to say something like, “How can I help?” or “Let me know if there is something that I can do for you,” but surprisingly that may not be what some people want to hear. Katherine Woodfield Hermes, author and health care advocate, is not only a cancer survivor but also faced this situation when her husband was dying from complication of diabetes. “My life was a swirl; I called it the carnival swirl because it was as if I was on a ride that wouldn’t stop… and it didn’t for six months. The whole time, people would ask, ‘How can I help?’ But I didn’t know how to answer them because life was so fast and erratic.”  Heartbreakingly, she noted that her kids slept with her for months in fear that, if they didn’t, they would lose her, too.

Dr. Carolyn Daitch, a cancer survivor, author and director of the Center for Treatment of Anxiety Disorders in Farmington Hills, Mich., recommends being specific with offers to help.  Be specific about which days you will transport patients to treatment facilities, or the actual day you will bring over dinner or clean their house. “It’s a great way to make a positive impact,” says Daitch. 

Anita Pool, a survivor of both ovarian and breast cancer, adds, “Once I got to the point where I knew I couldn’t do it all myself, I realized that people really do want to help. They get a lot of satisfaction out of it, so in a sense accepting their help actually helped them feel better, too.”

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