Hearing that word "terminal", how did you guys feel when you heard that?

When I was first told I had cancer, I was gutted, but then when the Doctor a few days later then tell us it was “terminal”, I thought OMG, that is it, I am going to die. Why, What had I done, loads of questions entered my head and my heart sank.

 

It took me a while to come to terms with what they had told me and my then partner, Paul.  I think terminal is a hard word to use because you naturally think, I am going to die.  As my husband rightly says what it actually means is you have an incurable disease.  It’s impossible to say for certain how much time anyone may have left as it depends on the individual and how they respond to treatment and how fast their tumour(s) is/are growing…probably months to a year, but maybe more. When a cure isn’t possible, there’s still a lot that can be done to help a patient though…radiotherapy and sometimes chemotherapy are used to shrink the tumour and help a patient’s symptoms, basically to help them keep as well as possible for as long as possible. 

 

I was diagnosed back in 2011 and are still here fighting as best I can with the situation I am in. I came through a burst appendix where I should have by rights, died and pneumonia this Easeter.  When people ask what is wrong with me and I say I have terminal cancer, because they hear that word “terminal”, they suddenly change their reaction to you.  I have an incurable disease until technology can cure cancer so all they can do for me is make me as comfortable as possible and I treasure each day I have.

 

i do wish they had worded their words differently to me at the time. It would have been a softer approach and easier to take in.  What do you guys think?  Is it better to be cruel to be kind?  Thanks for listening.

Hi cookie

 

I was a bit shellshocked with it and it brought the prospect of dying very close. I dont actually object to my consultant  using such words, alth tbh I cant actually remember it properly. I asked how long I had. The answer was something like maybe a few years, maybe  a lot more, they didnt know. It was the spring/summer of 2013. It happened about a month or so after discovering the cancer had come back, which was a blow in itself.

 

I found myself thinking about my life, the meaning of my life and what death means to me.

 

The thing I find the most scary is how I might die and also the prospect of becoming more and more ill and being in hospital with no control over my life.