Some Illnesses Are More Deserving?

[GoingPotty39]

Prompted to write this by another post (didn’t want to derail that thread) where the OP has cancer and was wondering if she could ask friends for practical help. Lots of posters saying yes and that they would gladly help and have actually helped friends in similar situations. If I were the OP’s friend in that situation I would definitely want to be asked and would certainly provide practical/emotional support as much as possible. Same for a friend with any illness/in need.

On to my question, are certain illnesses seen as more deserving of attention/support from friends and family? Certainly funding varies wildly between certain diseases, with those mainly affecting women sadly receiving generally far less funding for research.

My perception is that certain types of illnesses tend to galvanise more support from friends and family, whereas as others not so much.

In my case I have a serious health condition where I went from fully active to only being able to work a few hours a week and largely housebound. I have been underwhelmed by the level of practical and emotional support offered from close friends. Although I very badly impacted, the illness is “invisible”.

So I’m interested to know if others think there’s a difference, perhaps depending on whether it’s s well-known illness. finite recovery time vs chronic condition, visible/invisible disability or physical/mental health etc.

YABU-no difference
YANBU- there is a difference

My condition is terminal It's a toss up between my lung muscles failing or my heart before 50.

And it's not cancer. And before that I lose the ability to walk. Gee great.

In the chain I quoted, you asked someone 'why you think that is' and in their example they used chronic fatigue.

Sorry I get lost replying. What was the question?

I don't think that was me.

It wasn't.

I replied to someone else, then you quoted me, I assumed back.

I'll preface by saying that I'm an oncologist so treating cancer is my working life.

I'm also what they call a cancer survivor. The amount of support, sympathy and understanding that I had during my fairly brief cancer experience was immense. When I first went into oncology I thought that the help, advice, support that cancer patients received was the same for all patients.

How wrong I was. A good friend of mine works as a respiratory physician. Her patients are mostly COPD or other damage to the lungs. There are few charities for her conditions. Even less understanding and sympathy for her patients.

When I had cancer I had complete strangers offering to help me. My sister has ulcerative colitis and is more severely impacted by her condition than I ever was by my cancer. Yet she received little care and understanding whilst all I have to do is say I once had cancer to be treated like some kind of hero.

I don't actually agree that cancer automatically appears more deserving - DM has a chronic leukemia and 3 years in everyone but me seems to have forgotten. She's still having treatment and unwell but the expectation is she should be better and all other support has fallen away. Feels very lonely and that most people don't understand - she'll never be better, this is it. Grateful she can live with her cancer, but it still sucks sometimes.
I think it may be more of a chronic v short term illness effect, people can be sympathetic and understanding but only if you're impaired short term.

I think another issue with chronic illnesses is that people are scared of them, and don't like to face the fact that it could happen to anyone. So if they can come up with reasons that it could be your fault i.e you are overweight, underweight, smoke, don't exercise, are too stressed, etc, then they can reason that they do none of those things, therefore it will not happen to them.

I think a lot of it depends on whether you're asking for the support. A lot of people will try their best to carry on and people may not know you need support. And whether or not your friends have experienced said illness/life event as PPa have mentioned.
To give an example a friend of mine went through a miscarriage. It hit her hard but she didn't want to talk about it. I was brave enough to climb the wall because I unfortunately have a very seasoned history of baby loss so i knew the pain, isolation and grief she was likely feeling and unable to put into words. Another friend took her at her word that she didn't want to talk about it. She's not a bad or unsupportive friend, but she can't put herself in her shoes in the same way because she doesn't have the experience.

@WiseLurker think you’ve quoted me? Can’t find the post you were responding to though?

I think what most people on here are saying is that there are some really horrible conditions, some terminal, some having a horrible effect on quality of life, and all these people are deserving of compassion and support.

I don’t really understand why someone with severe fatigue, perhaps bedbound and no treatment options, wouldn’t be deserving of support? Ok they might not die any time soon, but their quality of life is pretty awful.

Lung conditions are illnesses with no real support. And they are usually terminal.

I have rheumatoid arthritis, which is an autoimmune disease and impacts just about all of my joints, and I use a walking stick. A few good-meaning people have told me to take tumeric, or cold showers, which is annoying, but the one person I wanted to stab told me that he had arthritis too, broke his toe as a child and it was sore in cold weather.

I didn't say what I wanted to say, which is that some bit or other of me always hurts, sometimes all of me, and by the way which toe is it so I can accidentally squash it with my stick.

Meh, I wouldn't read too much into it. People help at first because of shock but real life creeps in after a while, they get tied up in their own lives and all help stops.

My mum got diagnosed with a horribly aggressive breast cancer, got 12 months to live. Lots of help in the first 3 months. Then it petered out. Then she turned it around and manage to survive a while longer. Except for immediate family, most people were tired of it by that point, just waiting for her to die already.

DP had to give up work to look after me.

No one else ever helps.

Awful

I have it too, mid stage at 62, nasty, most nuero stuff misunderstood.
i almost wish Parkinson’s is what Kate and Charles had, royalty would have raised funds and awareness.
The famed Rob Burrows dies from MND and forgotten too soon, despite all the pre coverage

Mental health issues definitely the bottom of the list

Awful 😢

It is scary but honestly I've done okay, my consultants always seem amazed at me 😎one day at a time and things are okay. 😊

People with cancer get treated miles better than any others. I have a blood disorder like I posted earlier that’s equivalent to stage 3 cancer. I’ve never forgotten when I had chemo and lost all my hair. A lady from a wig company came onto the ward showing people wigs that were free. The nurses introduced me as I was only 25 and inconsolable over losing my hair and I was told because I didn’t have cancer they wouldn’t give me one. Won’t ever forgive or forget that. Other diseases can be and are just as bad if not worse than cancer .

I agree with pp that chronic illnesses get less support than acute ones.
My view is that illnesses which fluctuate are often judged by the person's best days/hours (when they could actually leave the house and meet people). The worse days/hours, when someone can't even leave their bed, are a lot less visible.

I think that the whole concept of "talking helps" is actually harmful. It gives people with chronic illnesses the unreasonable hope that they will be anything other than completely alone with their condition. If they are lucky their partner might stick by them, but often that is not the case.

And as far as friends go, in todays world everyone has their own problems and they want undemanding friendships that they can have a laugh with. They don't want to feel guilty about someone's illness and constantly worry that the friend might start asking for help, or putting a downer on things.
It is not enough to put on a brave face about your illness, you have to not tell people about it at all. In the past, people with illness and disability stayed out of sight, and these things were kept to immediate family, due to shame and stigma.These days we pretend that we are more enlightened and that the stigma is gone, but really the stigma is just less overt. In a weird way todays attitude feels
I am not saying this through bitterness. On the contrary, once I had accepted reality, I learned to take pride in self reliance.

This is a very interesting thread. I am coeliac, have rheumatoid arthritis and pernicious anaemia. I am exhausted all the time and my treatment mainly consists of treating the symptoms. I've been really unwell for 5 years. I was telling a friend last week about how my doctor has suggested testing for something else based on symptoms and she kind of rolled her eyes and said 'You do make a meal of this sometimes'. I don't actually think I do. I don't often go out in the evenings due to tiredness and it was on the back of a conversation about how i was not able to go for a lengthy dog walk with her that day. I don't even mention the issues often except for asking for gluten free stuff in restaurants. My life is severely impacted by pain and exhaustion and actually I think I do a good job generally of coping. It was a real shock to me that she has been inwardly rolling her eyes at me.

I used to know someone who claimed to have the same condition as I do. She once said "you managed yesterday so why not today?" Because it's well known to cause fatigue and varies a lot.