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

Also, give a thought to people who have to react to others having cancer, coming out with these cliches is not normally coming from bad intent. I sometimes cringed at the way people reacted when they found out I had cancer had to forgive them because people don't know how to react to this kind of thing. It's difficult to know what to say.

Sorry just to add another note, at the time I personally felt I had to be brave, it was my way of coping. It was only 9 years later when a related issue cancer came up (breast construction) that I actually done some of the grieving I had pushed under the carpet at the time. We all cope in different ways for different reasons, there is no right or wrong. People who think positive are no better than people who feel bitter and angry about their disease.

My Husband died from cancer 3 months ago, he was nearly always positive and even when told it was terminal refused to believe it and was convinced he would be cured.
it is an insult to him to say that he didn't try hard enough or wasn't positive enough.
given that we have 3 kids who have autism then we must be special so how come he still died. i hate it when people say he is in a better place, i also cringe when people say sorry you lost your husband it sounds like i was just careless.
sorry to all who have gone thou or are going throu this.

Thing is, twinky, 'positive thinking' may make some vague difference to people's overall feeling of wellbeing. But it will make not a jot of difference to their chance of being dead or alive.

There is a very strong placebo effect with painkillers though - if you don't tell people you are giving them morphine, you have to give them a MUCH bigger dose to have any effect. (Yes, apparently someone really has done that study. No idea how they got it past an ethics committee.)

Great thread.

I particularly dislike people talking about tiny babies being "fighters" against cancer and other nasties.

this is so true my mum died of cancer when i was 11 and all this talk of battling and giving up towards the end devalued her love for me- when mil became ill with terminal breast cancer my dh was understandbly heartbroke and his only relief at night was bacardi i remember one particular night i was sleeping with ds1, 8 months pregnant with ds2 he came into the tiny boxroom where we were and said 'i could kill it,i could it' he spoke with such venom,anger and aggression that it did unnerve me - after calming him down slowly -it wasnt a man he was going to rip to shreds it was this cancer this beast of a disease and i tried to gently explain it wasnt human dont credit it with intelligence and eventually he did calm down he later in counselling described cancer like a pac man.

my thoughts are with those who are suffering this bastard disease and my heart goes out to those who have lost loved ones in particular O.J nd Martianbishop you ladies are inspirational x

John Diamond's Snake Oil is also a good and admirable book. I think this idea of having cancer being a 'battle' is something that some people comfort themselves with ie: 'if I am good and brave and positive I won't get cancer in the first place and if I do I will get better because I'm so good and brave and strong.'
It's possibly better for a cancer patient to believe that he/she is fighting back than to despair purely because it's a happier state of mind to feel that you are influencingt the outcome than to feel you have no control at all, but everyone deals with it in their own way.

here here. YANBU. It tears your heart out. It is a dreadful disease. We are going through the 'what if it had been diagnosed earlier?' Angry feelings about my dad's late diagnosis of melanoma. It hurts so much. But no one can fight it. Tis crap that the media come out with.

I agree, I totally agree
DH's cousin died a couple of weeks ago at 48, she had had cancer off and on for 12 years and frankly she'd battled enough and by the end she was so ready to go; but it still took a while for her to finally die and it was truly hideous - in that final week we were all hoping for it all to be over as soon as possible for her sake.

there is always that implication that some people can't have 'tried' hard enough. Am but not suprised that people have the gall to actually SAY so. Yes it's a cliche that people use and they don't mean it really a lot of the time, but I hate it, I really do.

It's true that people don't mean it harshly, or out of anything other than care and support. But I guess the point of this thread is for there to be a place, away from real life where you nod and say "yes s/he is a fighter", to say "it's a load of crap and it hurts, sometimes". Positivity is good - my mum is living on borrowed time (has had more than the 'life expectancy' at diagnosis) and we've had some really, really great times. People say to me that I have given up on her because I don't expect her to live long. I haven't. I will never give up hoping for more good times. But she has negative life expectancy, and me hoping and believing is not going to change that.

Ramble, ramble, sorry. I have managed not to swear and it was quite cathartic just to type that.

hi only joking
all i can say having been through this myself i know exactly how you feel i was offered councilling !! how the f**k could counciling help me !!can you bring him back to me and our kids !! help you get through my loss she said, what the !! can they !! how can they help mend a broken heart and family who have lost someone who had everything to live for and nothing to die for ;
lots of crying as a family i suppose helped but not a stranger who did,nt know my husband or family infact when i first went she did,nt did,nt know a single thing about me or my family !!;
people say it,ll take time to get over it well its been 10 years now and there,s no sign i,m ever going to get over losing the love of my life
i myself get on with it yes for my kids !!
onlyjoking my sorry for your loss !

I'm sorry to hear about the pressure your mother felt OBM. I can see how that must have been unbearable for you.

AbstractMouse, this struck such a chord with me: '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.'

Because my mother's lung cancer was so advanced when she was diagnosed, this was pretty much what we were given to expect. The day of her diagnosis (completely unexpected) was unbelievably traumatic and horrific - exactly the right words. As it turned out we were incredible lucky that she survived for some time afterwards. I have often thought that, horrible as her death has been for us, it would have been much worse if she had died shortly after diagnosis. I really feel for you.

ThingOne, the emphasis on breast cancer research, almost to the exclusion of other sorts of cancer, is a real bugbear of mine. Of course it's magnificent that there have been so many steps forward in breast cancer treatment, but - as you say - colorectal and lung cancers (as well as others) kill more people yet have fewer resources devoted to their research. My mother's oncologist told me that lung cancer research accounted for just 2 per cent of the money devoted to cancer research in the UK. I can't see how this can be justified.

edam, did you hear Ben Goldacre's programmes about the placebo effect on R4? (Can't remember whether you're a fan of his or not.)

Sorry to pick out individual posts like this - these were just things that struck me as I was reading through.

The counselling thing also annoys me. I once had a long chat to the Macmillan nurse about it.

I already know that it is OK to feel the emotions that I do. I know that I can talk about dh. I also know that I am sad rather than depressed (I used to work on anti-depressant drugs so I know all about the symptoms)

I think that people say that because they feel that they have to offer you something.

the best and most helpful comments that I have had so far are from people in the same or very similar boat who just say, 'I'm really, really sorry, if I can do anything ask me (and crucially they mean it!), and life is shit sometimes'

My parents both died from cancer, my dad "battled" it for 2 very long years, very painful years for him most of all but also for his then young family.

My mother, 20 years later was diagnosed with this god awful disease and died without fighting at all within 6 weeks. She decided to go quickly, and this she did. She refused treatment, she stopped eating or getting up at all from day one.

The difference? none at all, they both died

I am glad for this thread as it is easy to say the wrong thing whilst meaning the right thing. I have found it very difficult to know how to support people with cancer in my family. My aunt in particular was very dismissive of anyone talking to her about camcer unless they had it themselves, because she said nobody else could ever understand. I found this difficult to take as I am naturally empathetic.

Am so with the OPon this. I did a walk through the Gobi Desert to raise money for Breast Cancer research. There were a couple of women "survivors" there. I had recently lost a grandparent to cancer and it really irked me how they had won their battle and yet my grandfather had lost. And they were so brave and to be admired that they had fought and won.

I nursed my Grandad for 2 years and it felt like I was being told that if I fought harder he would have survived.

Policy, no, I didn't but I do like Ben Goldacre.

Another person who has had cancer here. I agree the terms 'battle' and 'fight' do imply that you can think yourself better and that is an insult to those who die. I have been described as brave, my response to this is that I didn't get the chance to say 'no thanks, no cancer for me'. What are you going to do? You just get on with it.

But I do understand that people usually don't mean to discriminate with these terms. They are trying very hard to say something helpful, and not getting it quite right. It's the spirit in which people say these things that matters the most to me - not the exact words they choose.

M.B my dh had about 3 sessions of counselling it wasnt just his mum dying his mum died on the thursday just as our ds2 was born the tuesday so luckily she did see him(he came out of hospital just 2 hours old -id had c section so i was out of it)but it was the shift in his feelings he felt bad about on one hnd he was happy he had just been blessed with a lovely son on the other hand is emotions were awry cos hed lost his mum and as an only child he was exceptionlly close to her.

He is an ex para who's done several tours of northern ireland in the mid 70s and obviously he had a lot of anger and emotion in him and rather than suppress his emotions with anti depressants (prozac being the 'in' drug at that time)the dr advised he spoke to someone impartial who could help 'file' his emotions.....in actual fact i put a stop to these meetings because i walked in one to the counsellor himself crying because his girlfriend had finished with him!!!.

Even those who die of cancer are 'survivors' until they stop breathing. So I don't find the term very meaningful.

It's true it's the spirit that matters, anorak, and I wouldn't tell a person speaking to me to fuck off if they used these words. What does piss me off is all the lazy journalism. It's as if every sentence containing the word cancer also had to have one of brave/battling/tragic/miracle. A bit of thought would go down better IMO.

Yes, I agree with you on that score. It's odd how cancer seems to be singled out from other illnesses in this way, isn't it?

Yes anorak. Do you remmeber Terry Pratchett talking about this recently? He was referring to the often heroic terms that are used to describe living with cancer whereas other diseases - such as alzheimers - are never portrayed in that way.