To hate people talking about other people's "battle" with cancer?

[Ronaldinhio]

I think cancer is an indiscriminate and terrible disease. I also think that most people would do anything to be cured of the disease. If this horrid thing finally overruns all of your systems and you die you DO NOT LOSE YOUR BATTLE.
It was never a fair war, you did not fight bravely and lose.
It just seems so negative and as if there were ever a choice or poor tactics that affected the outcome.. Or that if you had in someway made more of an effort you might have won.
Just make me

my husband died of cancer !! he /they tried everthing to get rid of that evil thing inside him he never ever once conplained about anything he did,nt want to die he did.nt want to leave his wife and his 3 children he,d of done anything i,m sure to stay here with us to see his first 2 grandchildren to see our eldest son marry !!
he had testiacular cancer had treatment then in remissiofor 18 months then back big time 6 cousres of cemo over the normal amounts of radiotherapy they could do no more !! but up till he took his last breath with me by his side i was still hoping someone would burst in and say we,ve found a cure !! !! it was,nt his time he did,nt want to go he was 37 !!!

When we were intensive care, having just turned all the life support machinery off that had been keeping my mum alive until we got there, (she had advanced breast cancer, that had spread to the bones and her liver and eventually died from an infection after her first bout of chemotherapy), one of the doctors said to me how shocked he was that she had died as she had been the most positive patient he had seen for some time.

So what?

And how was that supposed to make me feel better?

Its true as if those who don't make it somehow didn't 'fight' as much and let it 'beat them'.It is a lottery who recovers and who doesn't dependant on many things mostly beyond our control

The John Diamond book, as the columns were, is fantastic on this subject.

I agree, very much so. My mum will die before long and it's nothing to do with anything she did or didn't do. It's incurable.

I think these things are so intensely personal, though. Some people are comforted by these sort of sayings.

A friend of mine has a child with SN and when she was drunk she told me with such emotion about a priest (she's not religious) telling her that children with special needs are born to special parents that I could tell that comment meant so much to her and gave her so much encouragement. This is the story she tells 13 years after her son's birth.

I might think 'schmaltz' but it meant something to her.

I know two women with what is probably terminal cancer - and like everyone else they're not 'battling'. They're living - and they'd like just to do that for as long as possible.

Deb - so sorry to read about your dh - that must have been terrible for you. There is a support thread in the bereavement section for widows and widowers if you felt so inclined?

My sister is very ill. She's been ill for the best part of a decade, and yes, she's fought very hard (with the assistance of the NHS) to stay alive. But if she had died, it would not have been because she wasn't a fighter, and she did not live because she fought. She has been lucky (in the context of very bad luck), and she has had amazing doctors. So yes, I can't stand this saying either.

I certainly know what you mean.

Minutes after my mum had passed away our church minister said to me (he was with me at the hospice) that Sally (another lady from the church who was also in the hospice) is really battling again her cancer, your mum really missed your dad didn't she (he died of dementia 2 year earlier)...

Can you imagine how I felt the next day when I reaslised what he had send and even worse meant.. Basically that my mum had given up as she missed my dad! It was so untrue, she certainly wanted to live, although she obviously did miss him, but she even told me that she didn't want to die as she has so much to live for, and that she wanted to see my DD grow up...

It made me feel that he thought that Sally lived longer with her cancer (about 2 years longer) than my mum because she fought harder...

I think the term for what you are all taking about is is Health Fascism, ie only the strong survive and the cowards don't

My dh does of cancer 2 months ago and I agree with you 100%

He was a fighter pilot, so he did battle, but with the cancer he was ill. And while he never gave way to it, he hated the 'battling cancer' thing. He also hated being told that he was brave., stating that you were only brave if you volenteered, and he hadn't.

I loath the 'positive thought' crapola, because it seems to say that 'if you die it is your own fault, because you were too negative' which is a pile of shite.

a MNetter once posted along the line, be saw the error and had the decency to applogise for the hurt that she had caused

Policywonk, love your quote. Which dh we planned for the worst and hoped for the best.

It got us through quite a bit of shit, and is still helping me now

another one who hates the use of language that somehow attributes moral values to how a person reacts to illness, and especially illness as grave as cancer. dh's mum died from cancer and she hated all this stuff. dh does too. I read a very good article about this kind of attitude to illness - it wasn;t about cancer but was very good and, I think, relevant to this thread. It rang a lot of bells with me. I have ms and am lucky enough that, fingers crossed, it has barely affected me. but if anyone dares attribute that to my character and/or speculate as to how I;d react if it got worse I (in my quiet way) get very . I'll try to find the article

agree with all the above comments . The idea of the experience of cancer being a 'battle': what a patronising fucked up cliche that is ( 'scuse language but I hate it!).

MB couldn't agree more - the notion that 'thinking positive' can miraculously reverse cancer or improve it. As though you are somehow culpable in your own demise because you were a bit too negative.

Ohyes I t drives me mad to hear that phrase. It is just a ridiculous and inappropriate description verb to use. Grrr

this article is about the idea of "battling" with illness - tbh it's not as good as I remembered but it is still thoughtful here

Thanks MB

Sorry to hear all the sad stories on this thread. Good wishes to those still dealing with cancer (their own or other people's).

My mother's oncologist was very blunt about why she survived so much longer than expected - he said it to her face on the second anniversary of her diagnosis: sheer genetic good fortune (that her constitution, and particularly her renal-hepatic system, was able to take a lot of chemotherapy-related punishment). I'd also add to that that she had good doctors and was under the care of a good hospital. Plus once or twice her own intellect/curiosity played a part (for instance when she was about to be given someone else's chemo by mistake ). Beyond that it's sheer dumb luck.

Mind you, I also agree with pointy that people take comfort from all sorts of things, rational or not. Since mam died several people have said to me 'It must have been a relief in some ways'. Actually it was no sort of relief at all, but other people in my position might well have felt that it was.

Dh survived for 18 onths , when they initially gave him 3-6. there were 2 reasons for this.

first we were lucky enough to have a fantastic oncologist who went the extra mile for dh.

second he was young enough, and otherwise fit wnough to withstand 3x the normal amount of cemo for the first set of treatment and was given 2 trail drugs. Most men with his cancer would have been older and iller. This was not moral courage, it was just the luck of the deaw.

I must say that when he finially did die, I did accept it, because the last week became so horrific, in spite of the best and excellent efforts of the hospice

It makes me sick when ill-informed people talk about a "battle" with cancer. My father, in the space of 12 months, has gone from being a healthy, happy 63 year old to a bedridden, incontinent, skeletal, drug ridden, confused invalid. Are they trying to say he couldn't be arsed to put up a fight? It comes from total ignorance.

Policywonk:"When my mother was diagnosed with metastasized lung cancer, she adopted Gramsci's motto: pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will. "

Bloody hell, what an amazing woman. I never met her but actually, I think about her a lot.

My own mother, when she was diagnosed, talked specifically about this expression. She said she already felt under pressure to 'perform'. I think, in some respects, that it influenced her decision to become 'buddhist' about her death - what will be etc. I found that almost unbearable.

God I was just discussing this very thing with Dp the other day, I hate it when people say "they put up a brave fight" etc, like MB Dh, I agree that being brave requires the person to volunteer, cancer is indiscriminate.

My Mum was dead within 3 weeks of being diagnosed with lung cancer, we still got the "it must be such a relief" thing blah blah blah. Erm no actually it was horrific and traumatic and basically the worst thing ever. I may be selfish but I would rather have my Mum forever in a semi-ill state than her being gone. People can be very insensitive, I can't think of my Mum's death even now (18 months later).

my hubby was such a good man like i said above he did,nt want to die he took everything they tried for him but i can still remember the day he was told 24th july 1998 !! and we both had to tell our 3 children when we got home they were 14 15 and 5 that there was nothing else they could do he wanted to know how long !! 18 months - 2 years there was no hope !! he died on august the 15th 1998 ? he started to go down hill really fast from the day he was told he did,nt cry i did all the time he was the strong one do you beleive that ! he could speak told me he wanted to be buried in his naval uniform and for me to be strong told me when he goe,s he won,t be in anymore pain and he,ll alway be watching me and do you know i feel he is !! i,m just gratefull for the 20 years we had and for our children and the lovely story to this is our son who,s now 27 has given him 2 grandchildren and he is the double of his dad to he walks like his dad talks like his dad doe,nt like spending money like his dad lol and most of all he looks so much like his dad so his dad will live on forever ! in our 3 kids and there kids and so on
x

I have cancer and I fucking hate all the stupid phrases that go with it. My cancer "journey" has been too long so far. I am "brave" and "strong". I have "so much to live for". "You're not a patient you're a survivor".

I'm dreading breast cancer awareness month. So many chances for so much shit. Especially as colorectal cancer can't be dressed in a fetching pink t-shirt.

So well said ThingOne.

I wish you well, and soon.

Completely understand what has been said, but must admit I never read into the "battle" comments. I did have cancer, and I did feel it was a battle, I did feel I had won the battle - but not in the way that it meant I was anything less if I hadn't - and I'm afraid the whole positive thinking concept worked for me! I didn't think I was brave, and the brave comments meant nothing to me because it was never my choice to get it. But friends and family did feel inspired by how positive I was during my treatments, and I admit maybe it was easy for me to be because it never got to the point of life threatning. But I do feel thinking positively helped me through it, helped me in my recovery and there is plenty of evidence to suggest that positive thinking can make some difference to your emotional, mental and physical health. I am NOT saying that people who die from cancer is down to them not thinking positively AT ALL.
I have also had depression, and no amount of positive thinking could help me there, only medication.
Just saying that thinking positve was a good state of mind for me to be in during a difficult time when I had cancer, surgery, radiotherapy, chemo, lost my hair and all in my 20's. Let's not give positive thinking an entirely bad name!

My father does this a lot, looks back with rose-tinted spectacles & romanticises my mother's 'brave battle' with cancer. Given he did little of the nursing maybe it's the view he has, I don't know.

Even on my wedding day in his speech he'd reinvented the past and spoke of 'her putting 2yrs of parenting into her last 6 months, once she knew she was going to die." Now I adored my mother but this didn't happen; to my ongoing regret we never had those intimate conversations even before the morphine took hold. Normally I find my father's platitudes harmless but sometimes at unexpected moments they make me angry.

This is such a poignant thread. Imo John Diamond got it right.