to tell my friend she needs to move

[2snugglets]

One of my oldest friends is currently caring for her terminally ill Dm. Her Mum was diagnosed with an aggressive brain tumour which has now spread to her lungs and bones. Her mum is early 60's. When we were at school her Df got lung cancer which spread quickly to bones and he died within a couple of months of being diagnosed. Also, even more tragically she had an older sister who died from cancer as a teenager, sh.
Her family have lived in a large farm house which is very grand and will be passed onto my friend when her mum dies, she intends to move in as it is the house she grew up in. She has two very young children.
My Dh is convinced that the house is sitting on something radioactive or toxic and I feel his theory is right so I worry this would be a death sentence for her or her children should she move in. AIBU to say something to her, I am doing my best to support her through this awful time. I go round and look after her children so she can spend time with her mum, she has her heart set on moving in as feels this is what her family would want and would be looking down on her.

what a sad story and you are a good friend.

Radon is estimated to cause 3% of the lung cancer deaths in the UK. If the house is in one of the affected areas, tests can be done to see if there is a problem. It isn't a definite but you can find out.

there is no conclusive evidence that pylons or efields cause cancer.

I agree - do or say nothing for now.

There's loads of folklore in Cornwall about cancer villages near and on the granite moors. Funnily enough when my aunt moved into one of them, her local mates sucked their teeth and muttered about cancer - she then got it, but recovered.

So there you go. Mind you, acc local lore she probably caught it from a piskie.

So you are planning to tell your friend to sell her family home because your husband has a fanciful, completely baseless hunch that something in the house or its surrounding caused her family members' cancers???

Utter nonsense, OP. As pps have said, cancers are common now we're not dying from crap water, TB, cholera, in childbirth in huge numbers. Support her at an appalling time. Spare her your husband's half-baked theories.

Cory have you seen Cornwall on that radon map? Cancers often have genetic or environmental components. If it were my friend, I would certainly pick as tactful a time as possible, and raise the issue.

Its not really surprising about cancer villages being on granite rich areas as granite is one of the sources of radon gas.

My $0.02:

Do: - ask her about the radon testing and genetic testing subtly and sympathetically

Don't: - tell her, "my DH thinks your house is cursed/poisoned and YOU HAVE TO MOVE despite caring for your ailing mother etc"

p.s.: I live in Cornwall and the radon map scared the shit out of me!

I don't think you'd be being insensitive if you were to mention it but heaven only knows how you would do it without causing massive upset so I think it's best left alone, it may well have occurred to your friend as well as the genetic link; that seems more likely unless there is something massively obvious about the house and the surrounding environment.

If what you say is remotely true she would be sick already, having grown up there with her family.

It's very obviously not true.

Not necessarily Laurie. cancers from environmental factors aren't quite so deterministic:

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stochastic#Medicine

Someone could live all their lives in a radon hot spot and be fine. Or they might not be. Its probabilities not certainties.

so a few facts:

1 in 3 people get cancer
some cancers have environmental associations - but these tend to be more likely in specific types of cancer
some cancers have genetic components - but again these are similar groups of cancer. One presumes your friends parents were not related.

What you have described is a young person dying of bone cancer - so presumably an osteosarcoma, then a lung cancer (which is most commonly due to environmental factors) & then a person dying of brain cancer with mets (which is unusual - its most common the primary is from somewhere else and spread to the brain )

This is not the pattern of a genetic cancer.
It is not the pattern of a radiation poisoning incident (most commonly leukaemia, would be clustered in time)

Essentially this is one family with really shit luck but the cancers have occurred with long time gaps.

I would imaging the house holds warm memories for her and she would like to live there. You would be being extraordinarily unreasonable to add any degree of doubt to this and your husbands theory is plain daft.

COI medically qualified