Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 3 4

Original poster

to think that people shouldn't say 'get well soon' to a terminally ill person?

79 replies

Libitina · 16/03/2015 22:59

An aquaintance of mine is imminently going to die from breast cancer. To be fair, she has beat it on more than one occasion previously, but this time she hasn't. She has basically been sent home to die.

I find it tasteless and unfeeling that people who know her diagnosis are still posting stuff like 'get well soon', 'here's to a speedy recovery' and 'you can beat this' to her on facebook . Not this time.

I know I'm not family, but if I was I think it would annoy and really upset me. She would love to get better, but she only has a few days, maybe weeks, at the most. It's so sad.

Basically, I think I'm trying to say, please think before posting on facebook.

OP posts:

echt · 17/03/2015 09:56

I've had a think about this, so googled "What not to say terminally ill people."

Pages of good advice. No excuse.

strawberrysalsa · 17/03/2015 09:57

I can really sympathise. My adult daughter has a chronic, degenerative illness and is getting increasingly house/bedbound. My family refuse to accept she is 'really' ill and are always telling me or 'miracle cures' or saying if she 'just thought positively' she would get better.

Not helpful. My Mum even offered a bribe to my daughter of a holiday...with her, so not so much of a bribe...if my daughter would get better Too many people just refuse to accept bad news and so say stupid things instead.

Sending hugs to everyone who is having to deal with the crap life can throw at us!

Original poster

Libitina · 17/03/2015 10:01

I suppose, even in this day and age, that talking about death is still taboo isn't it? Hence why we don't know how to deal with it.

I'm sorry to hear what previous poster are going through atm , I hope I haven't upset anyone by bringing the subject up?

OP posts:

sebsmummy1 · 17/03/2015 10:18

This has put in a nutshell why I am currently avoiding some of my family after my third miscarriage in 12 months. I can't stand the unending positivity of future healthy pregnancies (I'm 40, the likelyhood of healthy future pregnancies is low). The constant stories of 'miracles', irrelevant things torn out of papers, demanding I am more positive and hopeful, then randomly suggesting I should be less hopeful and let things happen naturally, go on holiday, wanting to know if the hospital have been in touch on a weekly basis (they haven't) etc etc.

Honest to god I just want to be left alone to grieve and accept. I expressly asked my sister NOT to regale me with stories of positivity when I saw her and yet still she launched into miracle stories again!! FFS. So I can absolutely see what must happen when a terminal illness is diagnosed and people should accept the prognosis and offer suitable well wishes. I totally agree that many people have no experience of death and have no idea how to express sympathies appropriately.

Hand holding for everyone struggling with illness or the affects of it in this thread. You have my sympathies

FromthePinkGlitterySide · 17/03/2015 10:52

My Aunty sent my dad, who was terminally ill with lung cancer, a get well soon card. It was actually a child's one, complete with a dinosaur on the front. The printed message was something like 'here's a great big monster hug to chase away that nasty bug' some people are just wankers.

plecofjustice · 17/03/2015 11:44

Part of the issue is that modern culture doesn't have many ritual words to deal with this situation any more. Religious imagery is not appropriate as so many people are not religious. So it used to be acceptable to respond with "God Bless" - a prayer and a wish for divine miracle or a wish for a peaceful meeting of the creator, but now this causes massive offence, and there's no replacement ritual language in our shared cultural vocabulary. The nearest thing we have in language to express our wish for a fulfilled remainder of life and a peaceful, painfree death, is "thinking of you".

NigellaFlawsome · 17/03/2015 11:49

My dear dad died suddenly last year. A close friend sent me a message with that saying "It'll all be ok in the end. If it's not ok, it's not the end." I was really upset by it. He's dead. That's about as final as it gets.

I appreciate its sometimes difficult to know what to say but really can't bear it when people just repeat twee sentiments with no thought as to whether it's appropriate to the situation.

Shineyshoes10 · 17/03/2015 14:23

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

TheWickerWoman · 17/03/2015 14:29

It's a difficult one. My dad recently died from cancer, he wasn't expected to go this quick, we thought he had more time.

He was in and out of hospital at the ends I people did say 'get well soon' to him and he appreciated it, don't think he wanted to accept he was going to die for a while and it was just a set back.

I suppose it all depends on the situation and how the person sees it. I can understand why people saying that is really insensitive given the circumstances.

Sorry about your friend.

TheWickerWoman · 17/03/2015 14:30

Apologies for the typos ^^ Stupid phone! Think you get the idea though.

geekymommy · 17/03/2015 14:45

My fiance is terminally ill and he has people telling him that if he stays positive he"ll beat it

Hit them hard (in the balls, if they are male). Tell them if they stay positive, it won't hurt.

MaidOfStars · 17/03/2015 14:57

I have just composed a letter to a friend of my parents, who is declining rapidly with terminal cancer (I haven't seen him in maybe 15 years).

I told him it was clearly shit all round and therefore I wasn't going to offer any greetings card nonsense. I shared a memory of him and myself when I was much younger (he taught me an "interesting fact"). I told him that such shared memories can't be destroyed by distance (I live far away) or time, that it had always stayed with me, and that I had always and would continue to think of him whenever I passed on the "interesting fact".

I hope that's alright (the first bit about not bothering with platitudes). I think he'll accept it in the manner it is intended.

Chchchchange · 17/03/2015 15:09

Hoping you're as well as possible is always a good one. There is no assumption someone can get better
People are so insensitive

Original poster

Libitina · 17/03/2015 15:10

Maidofstars, what was the interesting fact??

OP posts:

thatsucks · 17/03/2015 15:15

So sorry for everyone coping with terminal illness and anyone touched by stupid fucking horrible cancer

I think people are so scared of death that's why they deny, deny, deny: 'You'll beat it' 'miracles can happen' etc.

They don't mean to be insensitive, they are scared and they don't know what to say. They are however being insensitive no matter what the intention.

KittyandTeal · 17/03/2015 15:31

I don't have experience of what to say to someone with a terminal illness.

However, I recently had a tfmr as out dd2 was diagnosed with edwards which is incompatible with life.

The thing that I have really hated is the platitudes; the 'you weren't meant to have this baby' or 'it'll be ok in the end' 'you can have another' 'you have to stay strong for your dd1' all of them make me so angry.

The best thing that was said to me was by the midwife who delivered my dd2 she basically said 'it's rubbish, rubbish you're here and rubbish you have to go through this but I'm here to make it as easy as I can'

Lots of my friends just say 'that's really shit' along with that and the 'were thinking of you' or just a hug. That's the best thing.

Oh and please don't do the 'I know how you feel, I had a miscarriage at 7 weeks' that's really sad but not the same.

AlpacaMyBag · 17/03/2015 15:46

Yy a lot of people just really struggle with this stuff.

There was a quote from Naomi Mitchison about the death of her first child when he was around ten years old. I don't have the book handy to look it up. It was along the lines of "It increased the sum of sadness in the world; there is nothing to balance it out."

Some time ago, someone close to me suffered a serious spinal injury. The number of people who said/wrote to her, "Everything happens for a reason!" was just amazing. I'm sorry but not everything happens for a reason. Some things are just shit.

to so many on this thread.

NancyRaygun · 17/03/2015 15:55

So sorry to read about people's experiences on this thread :( it reminded me about the time a friend's mum died from a rare and aggressive cancer and a mutual acquaintance said to her "if only she had tried homeopathy... she might not have lost the fight". It was a double whammy.

Fortunately she laughed about it - what else can you do?

Original poster

Libitina · 17/03/2015 15:59

Fortunately she laughed about it - what else can you do?

Your friend is a stronger person than I am, I'd have decked them! Not big and not clever, I know, but how insensitive!

OP posts:

mariamin · 17/03/2015 16:03

I have a degenerative illness. I still get friends talking about me getting better. No I won't, the damage that has happened can't be fixed, and the damage will only get worse. A lot of people seem to have a real problem getting their head round the fact that there is no hope for improvement.

shovetheholly · 17/03/2015 16:12

I think part of the problem is that sickness is now so removed from daily life, managed in hospitals and hospices and care homes and away from the world of business and work. When people get sick, they vanish from that world. They are more and more defined by where they are not - they're not at work, they're not at the pub, they're not doing the school run. They become kind of invisible. And because people don't see the daily grind, the very unheroic, patient battle with pain (made worse by isolation) and fought behind closed doors, they honestly believe this crap about medicine being able to fix anything these days. It comforts THEM to think it's true. But it isn't, and what's more, it does an injustice to the actual experience of the person doing the fighting. It doesn't take long to sit and think of something that isn't a cliche to write. Think!

MaidOfStars · 17/03/2015 16:16

It was about sprouts and not that interesting

LapsedTwentysomething · 17/03/2015 16:36

I am so sorry for those of you posting here with your experiences of terminal illnesses. My DM has terminal cancer and is currently trying to get hold of a drug that the NHS doesn't fund if you're the wrong side of the border.

However, even my DBs have their heads in the sand on this. 'It'll be OK,' they say. 'She'll get the drugs'.

It upsets me that they haven't looked into this at all. The drug she may or may not get is a second line treatment which might prolong her life by an average of eight months.

And don't get me started on 'fight'. There's no fighting rampant cancer cells if it's been caught too late. And having to passively take whatever gruelling treatment you can get hold of is not a fair fight anyway.

We lost a 32 year old cousin, a mother last year. All of this really hot home with me at this point.

That said, I really think people, including sometimes the patients themselves, trot out the platitudes that everyone wants to hear if they're not particularly informed about the type and stage of cancer.

Dowser · 17/03/2015 17:01

I just sent txts to my terminally I'll cousin most days saying I hope you have a better day. Today. Thinking of you. Hope you're not in pain. Hope you sleep better tonight etc

I agree it is very very difficult.

I also knew when I stopped receiving txts. Back he was coming to the end I still texted him though.

It can be very isolating.

niceandwarm · 17/03/2015 17:41

I hate the 'it happens for a reason ' brigade. I also hate 'don't you think your body is trying to tell you something', which is what my heavily pregnant sil said to me after my 4th miscarriage. I could have clocked her one.

kittyandteal I also think that by saying that a miscarriage is not the same (and I understand why you feel that way) you are dismissing or minimising the real pain and hurt many people go through.

Flip

1 2 3 4