AIBU to ask my friend to leave after criticising my diet?

[Dogingarden]

I have a friend staying with me at the moment because it's just been my birthday.

I have been having treatment for breast cancer and have had no appetite for several weeks. Today I had a craving for pizza and have eaten a large pizza and some chips. I've also eaten most of a bar of green and blacks chocolate today too, along with some other bits.

Friend isn't very impressed and has said several times I need to eat healthy food. She's very much into healthy eating and is very disciplined about what she eats.

I've explained that my consultant says to eat whatever I fancy when I fancy and not worry about what I'm eating as long as I'm getting calories. I have long nearly two stone from chemo side effects, for context.

Friend disagreed with this and said I shouldn't be eating "processed crap" because it's just going to make the cancer worse.

I'm extremely upset by her attitude and what she's said. She's gone up to bed and I'm sitting in the garden with my dog feeling awful. She's meant to be staying until wed but I'm going to ask her to leave in the morning.

Wibu?

👏👏👏

Yep. Huge difference between eating during active treatment and then eating afterwards.

Yeah I don’t think OP needs advice on what to eat to avoid cancer seeing as she already has it.

When my mum was going through chemo she had loads of ice cream as she had mouth ulcers and it was one of the only things she could stomach. She was an incredibly healthy eater otherwise, barely ate meat, everything home-cooked. But during treatment she just needed calories.

But this assumes that the cancer patient is ignorant and has absolutely no knowledge of what would be good for her or not. That’s like saying it’s ok to tell an overweight person once that they are overweight then just leaving it. They know. They don’t need anything “from a position of care”.

I’d hand her her arse but I wouldn’t ask her to leave unless I wanted to end the friendship.

On the children's cancer ward my son was on, the chef would regularly give the children ice cream and milkshakes to soothe sore mouths and encourage calorie intake.

What infuriated me was being told by a friend that positive thinking would help me beat cancer, because it worked for her partner. A partner who actually had died. She said he would have died sooner otherwise. Bollocks, but impossible to prove as most of these things are.
By her theory anyone who died obviously hadn’t wanted hard enough to stay alive which was pretty offensive. Plus research - by real scientists, not pseudo ones - shows that positive thinking will improve quality of life in cancer patients, but it doesn’t extend life.
Diet wise I was advised by oncology nurses that you need to be careful what you eat during chemo as many of the things normally eaten can potentially cause problems when your immune system is being hammered by the drugs to kill the cancer. I was told it was safest to follow a pregnancy type diet.
Ignore your friend.

There are some clowns on here. Most cancers aren't food related, most cancers take years to develop so that when they are noticed, diet makes no difference - that horse has bolted. And finally if you are rapidly losing huge amounts of tissue and muscle mass and have no appetite, then any calories when you can manage to get them in matter, from ANY source. You don't know until you have walked in OP's shoes.

Thank you, that is very helpful. Yes, I see now you've put it that way, taking out the human side. My reply was too fact based and impersonal. I will learn from this and modify the way I speak in future. I do have a tendency to interrupt because I feel like I am bursting with "the answer" and I can sometimes launch into replies and conversations without considering the possible impact first and get the tone wrong.

Oh love! Please accept this as the very longest of long hugs. You’ve been through so much. You’ve lost so much, and you are 100% correct that you are under weight and absolutely need to see if you can regain a bit for resilience

and ffs… if you can’t eat your body weight in pizza and chips on your birthday, after all you’ve been through, when can you.

with love and prayers for you. Keep fighting!

ps: it was my birthday on Thursday, when was yours? Are we birthday twins? 😂

Your friend is an ignorant fool. Cancer is incredibly metabolic - that’s why one of the early signs is unexplained wight loss. Eat anything and everything that you can.

A starving body won't heal, you're doing the right thing by eating what you can when you can. Our bodies are quite clever, yours has recognised you need more energy and fat and made you crave something to give you exactly that.

No one going through cancer treatment needs judgement, you're right to ask her to leave.

you know what gets right up my underwear? "Lost their battle with cancer" As though they didn't fight hard enough, could have done more...and yes the postive thinking thing. Speaking as someone who lost their husband to cancer I wish that all non clincians would shut the fuck with their stupid unsought advice.

Very insensitive of her, I'd be pissed off if a friend said this to me in any context. Just because you are going through treatment does not give her a right to make judgemental comments. It probably does come from a place of love and well-meaning concern but the way it makes you feel isn't great and you need cheerleaders right now. Also one pizza and a bar of chocolate is hardly a terrible diet, it's about balance. I think you should be honest about how that has made you feel.

Can I suggest that anytime that you feel that you are "Bursting with THE answer" you take that as a warning sign to keep quiet unless 1. its a genuine
emergency or 2. its a very frivolous circumstance like someone asking on facebook what the thing is that they found in their shed and you KNOW that you are factually correct.

What an absolute self-obsessed arsehole she is.

REAL friends would never be so nasty or insensitive, cancer or not.

Toss her out, and tell her she's banned from your place for life, and you want nothing more to do with her.

I'm so sorry you're having cancer trouble. I hope you get through it somehow.

YANBU

what a cow

Explain to me how top athletes end up with cancer or MND or other life limiting illnesses then?

if food is our power why do we see fit and healthy, Olympic athletes, footballers with cancer?
im a great believer of everything in moderation when it comes to food and drink.

when my mil was having chemo any food she ate was a bonus.

Green and blacks is healthy eating imo.

I chose YANBU. Then I realised I am probably a bit of a hypocrite. I criticise my mother for something she does which is 'unhealthy' all the time as she has quote a few life-limiting conditions. I hate myself after I do it, but I can't help it sometimes because it is very hard to watch someone you care deeply about do something you think might make them worse. I'm saying, your friend may find it hard too in that way. But YANBU for wanting her to leave as she is not respecting your wishes. I'd probably give her one last chance and tell her how it makes you feel and that she needs to stop.

I wholeheartedly agree.

Thing is, you know she’s right about healthy eating. Surviving cancer is when you absolutely need to look after yourself and that includes eating well.
Processed crap will not assist in your recovery.

The odd meal of chips and pizza isn’t a problem and your friend knows that. She is clearly worried for you and is doing her best to help. Just tell her straight you don’t appreciate her advice right now but don’t push her away.

Fed is best in this situation and OP needs to be able to eat without judgement.

I think anyone critiscising a person going through what you've survived & still fighting is an ignorant arsehole. You can think it, but have the judgement to not say it.

YANBU to ask her to leave. You don't need to be uncomfortable in your own home & you're more than entitled to eat whatever you want.

Gosh, so many people here jumping to the worst possible conclusion about your friend.
For me, it would depend what she was like before. Does she have form for being judgmental and critical? Or has she been supportive on this journey?
Could it be concern that’s making her come across like this?
Only you know the answer to that, OP. Just talk to her.

You would not be unreasonable to tell that cheeky cow to leave and not call you again. Amazing how everyone becomes a health guru the minute someone else has a medical issue.

In California where I am from - it was not uncommon for people with cancer to be prescribed marijuana so they would eat. Before it was legalised my grandfather was diagnosed with lung cancer and he was given it. I use to cook him pasta, ribs, brisket, fried chicken and my favourite - German Chocolate cake. We had plenty of pizza too. He couldn't even stomach the idea of eating until he smoked it.

If you're eating without it then I encourage you to eat whatever the hell you like. If it's an option for you to get medical marijuana at some point, then strongly consider it. It really helped my grandfather with sickness and his appetite and pain.

Sending big hugs <3