Cancer corkers - the crap things people say

[PaperbackWrighter]

I don't want to diss my lovely friends, family and acquaintances (too much!!) but I've collected a fair few cancer corkers in only about 7 weeks since diagnosis with breast cancer!! Wondering what others have heard... Here, I'll start us off...

[Friend week after my breast cancer diagnosis] "I'm doing the Zoe app and I've been reading about bowel cancer - weight loss is a major symptom. I think you need to get tested for bowel cancer too."

"Oh you poor thing. My partner died of lung cancer." [I have breast cancer!]

Day after MRI. "Haven't heard anything so assume no news isn't necessarily good news?"

"Stay positive." "Keep strong." "Take one day at a time."

I'm a grumpy old git but I had to get it out!!!

They are all bad but the last one is just vile. Who would be that callous

Oh yes, God in his infinite wisdom eh?

How do you know I have?!!

Not cancer but another potentially life threatening condition

From a friend:
stay positive (when I’d started a campaign for better NHS screening)
I might have the same but not know. Why not get tested then? Oh no, I’m not doing that

from my cousin
I had that (he didn’t) and the doctor just gave me paracetamol. I didn’t moan about it.
You just have to accept you’re getting old (I’m middle aged, not elderly! Even if I was - insensitive or what….)

from my mother
oh dear I hope the treatment works. Then no other comment or inquiry, ever

KALE.

Fuck fucking kale to fuck, and then fuck it when it gets there. What the shit? You have cancer and they think some diet batshittery will stage a magic cure?!

And sugar, too. Yes cancer likes sugar. Cancers are youthful greedy parasites - they like everything! That's how chemo works.

Also? What is with preschools and EYFS generally giving the kiddies the Bear to do with the diary, as soon as they know about the dx. Do they honestly imagine staging a perfect life for your child is the dream weekend, right around diagnosis?

Oh, and six years post diagnosis, I am doing great.

I had a 9cm tumour.

There CAN be life after cancer, and fluke is what determines that. No more nor less.

Love to you all in this same shitty boat.

I’m waiting for an initial appointment to see if I have breast cancer. I work in a hospital and I cover at a hospice 3 afternoons a week.

Someone said to me this week - ‘you’re at the hospice a lot - you might as well live there!!’

Obviously they don’t know what’s going on in my life but why would you say something like that?

After having bc myself I would send her a lovely soft poncho or wrap that she can wear over drains etc or take to chemo. Other things would be hand cream, lip balm and soft warm socks.

Did anyone else have to comfort friends they told about their diagnosis because the friends burst into tears? Happened to me more than once.

i recently said i’ve got a serious end stage liver cancer on this very site! and asked for recommendations for a coffee machine .. had some MNs saying i’m a fake poster! That i was ‘lying’ about having cancer ! asking ‘why would your medical team advise you to drink coffee??’ (they only had to google ‘health benefits of good coffee and liver ‘ - to get some answers!) and i was even accused of working for well known coffee machine brands and ‘lying’ about being. single mother with end stage liver cancer for ‘marketing reasons’ to slyly advertise coffee machines!

Only 3/4 of these messages /posts (and from long time mn posters!) but still 3/4 too many!

the rest were LOVELY!

and now ‘former’ ‘best friend’ (always was hard faced and brutal but i let it slide as we went back years) she said ‘MUA’ - you don’t know MY stress !! i’m about to go Craxy bear with my new guy and i’ve got to fit in my beauty treatments around finishing work stuff and i need to get my * waxed!! cause YOU have cancer you no longer are in work and don’t have a man to impress so you don’t know this stress!!!

Since diagnosis

‘You may as well start drinking prosecco and chemaoage again! i mean you’re gonna die anyway!!’. (my former ‘best’ friend! )

‘if you’re end stage you may as well eat like a pig and drink alcohol rather than giving it up ! (my estranged father)

‘soo hard for me as i have back to back trips to go on like i do every year from manhattan to mykonos to santorini and sardinia and a cruise .. and im still going to re book this year and next year but i know im going to ‘look bad’ as my only daughter has Cancer and it makes me feel i can’t still live the life im used and accustomed to ‘ (my mother - she left when i was a kid and came back into my life to play nice nanny when cute blonde grandsons came along - my boys!)

‘You won’t get any sympathy .. anyone knows people with liver cancer are george best and they drank themselves to this !’

‘how come you still have hair ? ‘ (i’m too far gone for chemo hence why i have hair and lashes and brows)

They do seem well intentioned at first but often they're more about making themselves feel better than helping the person who's actually suffering.

When my husband got his bad news, we met a lady and she asked him had he his affairs in order. That was quite shocking 😳 It was the first time I ever thought of the financial implications

Had BC twice. Second time in the UK - best was being told by the (extremely gorgeous) oncologist that I was fit and in a good place for my second round of Chemo, despite being morbidly obese!! Pleased to say I'm still here after 4 years, not quite as morbidly obese, so perhaps he was right. God, he had lovely eyes.

Thank you so much for your suggestion xx

I have to say that telling people was an unexpected horror as although I know they did their best, I feel others' emotions deeply and i immediately felt sorry for telling them and felt I needed to help them deal with their shock. So i apologised profusely 😂

Which I know is stupid but that's just me.

They didn't burst into tears though.

It's about the spirit it's uttered, and consideration.

I am not scrutinising people, I know it's impossible to say the right thing. There's nothing curative you can say.

What's maddening (in my case) is self centredness around this topic, either needing reassurance (or advice as per thread) or to feel one is imparting some sort of wisdom, or focussing entirely on themselves with no thought of whether it may be a sensitive topic. I can't work or travel far at the minute and have probably lost my opportunity to have children.

These topics aren't banned by any means but I don't want to hear hours of petty gripes from people who have these things (who know my diagnosis ). Positive, neutral or substantively negative things, fine. Or a quick moan. Fine. Not just sighing and mithering on all evening about how tough normal life is between holidays (when I know there are no major issues). (Hello DP'S friends!). That, I wouldn't expect people to necessarily think of but it does really drain me.

The other person pushing for something from me in relation to cancer, such as reassurance or to spout self help nonsense and go home feeling wise is really inappropriate, self serving and unaware. They're already one up on me as they don't have this shit diagnosis, why do I need to feed their wellbeing further?

I don't take 'fighter' stuff badly from those I know in passing, although I don't like it. It's if they start to expand. 'look after yourself' is much more apt.

I think I'm very pragmatic about my circumstances. However there is nothing positive about it. It could be worse but that doesn't make it good. When other people push for facile positives, it makes me so angry. I don't mean actual useful stuff such as my surgeon involving me in research or a medic friend finding out more which has helped in their studies, or fundraising,

I mean that warm, dim glow of telling someone you think they will be 'ok' (this person really kept repeating that one, them and their bloody gut feeling), or bullishly interpreting some news as overly positive when I have recounted it cautiously and allowing yourself to celebrate when I feel more isolated than ever as I don't want to bring them down.

I really do appreciate the people in my life. I'm glad they don't understand this first hand. I'm really not grateful for some of their comments. However innocuously meant.

😲

After asking about my recent surgery, friend yesterday proceeded to tell me in great detail about her childbirth experience (16 years ago) and how she'd never met anyone else who'd had one as bad. (Also, I've never given birth.)

Five years since diagnosed with breast cancer.
Breast cancer is a good one to have.
Anything to do with fighting or battles.
The one that really got me was from a GP friend "you look really well". That's steroids for you. In fact I was on my knees with the effects of chem. Nausea, diarrhoea alternating with constipation, exhaustion, hyperactivity and insomnia (steroids again) nose bleeds, sore skin etc.
Have you tried <insert snake oil of choice>

For those asking about gifts. Ok flowers if they like them but otherwise the greatest gift you can give is contact. Not just at diagnosis but through all the grim and gruelling months that follow. I had good friends that melted away and people I didn't know so well who stepped up. Remember when their appointments are and offer lifts. Just little messages of trivia.

I have chronic foot in mouth disorder. I have ADHD so usually say stupid things and feel awful about it after or worry I’ve said something stupid. So it’s made me avoid serious subjects as I fear I’ll put my foot in it so I ramble on about useless shit.
My initial response is usually something like, I’m sorry that is really shit and do ask if they want to talk or shall I just witter on about unimportant bullshit.

I think your response to people is great.

Your response would be perfect to me

@Catunderling You sum it up perfectly for me

It could be worse, but that doesn’t make it good.

I do accept the difficulty of offering an appropriate response. However, I am profoundly irritated by ‘good intentions’. I agree with @Catunderling. The intention, it seems to me, is often to comfort or validate the person with those intentions

In my head I am angrily saying ‘It’s not about YOU’. Depending on the relationship with the well-intentioned one, my response varies from a nod and a smile to an explanation of how that has landed for me, with the occasional well, you can do one

Read the room, respond to the one who’s having the shit time. It’s not about YOU.