Inappropriate comments and how you've dealt with them

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On reading lots of the forums recently, I’ve noticed people mentioning some of the more inappropriate and sometimes hurtful comments that have been directed by well-meaning people.

So here’s a thread to dish up what THEY said, and what YOU said in reply (or even what you WANTED to say but bit your tongue instead).

to start:

On posting the Breast Cancer Awareness message and my own little personal experience on a forum I go on, I got a well-meaning “hope you’re fully on the mend soon” message.

After thinking about it for a while, I responded that treatment is 5-6 years so not just a quick op and all done, and that’s only if it doesn’t come back, which it might, and that would be a different battle. I know the lady concerned meant well but she missed the point of the post.

Any other comments that have had your blood boiling? (And I don’t care whether you felt you had a right to be annoyed, if you were annoyed, just post away!)

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Hi One of my favorites was when I lost my hair… People couldn’t resist saying… Oh I See Youv’e Lost Your Hair Then…

So the last time a so called friend said it too me i screamed at the top of my voice… OH My God No It Was There When I Left The House This Morning !!!

You should have seen her face… it was worth saying!!!

You will get use to the comments as time passes…

Love Teresa xxx

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The last shop assistant who said to me blithely, ‘hi, and how are you today…’

‘Apart from the cancer and the chemo, just great thanks. What about you?’

Mean I know.

Tracey

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This should be a thread to bring tears to the eyes…LOL

I think that answering honestly and putting people right CAN be a way of raising awareness of breast cancer…and any other cancer too.
People are really scared of saying stuff and often don’t know what to say which is why comments often seem crass.
People don’t know what chemo is…as the only thing they see is hair loss and a pale face and it scares the #### out of them. Men don’t often have a problem as bald and shaven heads are common…and accepted!

I think answering with humour and honesty, even if the honest answer is rather blunt…is the key.

Muffett…have made mental note to use that one ;-)))

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Hi all,
I agree totally with lostinfrance, people want to say something, but don’t know what to say, so something inappropriate usually comes out, when I found out I didn’t need chemo, I got totally pi#d off with folk telling me how lucky I was, as radio was ‘nothing!’ To which I replied oh hadn’t realised you’d had radio and know all about it!, met with silence, and a change of subject. Also after my op a work pal sent a card saying I was sadly missed, felt like I’d died already.
At least I now know what not to say to people dx with a long term illness!

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Hi
I agree with LiF, having braved the rugby club on Sunday - good friends and casual aquaintences - had a variety of comments, specially as I have decided not to wear wigs, hats, scarves most of the time … one of the lads (19) who did not know about BC (but I have known since for ever) made what could have been considered a crass comment, but as I know him so well, it was because he just didn’t know what to say, at all!
Also at rugby club there is always a fair amount of banter, and in the past, I have given various people jip over various things, and I now consider it to be my turn - it’s not meant meanly and to be honest, I would be more upset if they treated me differently or completely ignored me or the fact that I have a bald head…

TBH I find comments affect me differently, depending who utters them.

My MIL drives me nuts - refers to it as the BIG C! This drives me nuts as when my FIL was dx with prostate cancer, she said cancer quite “happily”

Humour and honesty works for me most of the time, but we all deal with differently!

LiF - are you getting out today or will I have to assemble the “C” team (hope that wasn’t inappropriate!)?

SJ xx

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Like many people on the ‘Sick to my back teeth’ thread, I am tired of being told that I might not lose my hair because treatment is so much better now. I answer that 2 of the chemicals are guaranteed hair loss and one is probable hair loss, so the only question is when and how much. I try to do this in a jokey way, but…

A friend who has been through adult leukemia has been very supportive and aware that not all treatment is the same.

Another problem is people who don’t say anything and don’t even talk to you.

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Morning all.

Love your comment about leaving the house Teresa, that really made me giggle! The worst comment I’ve had (so far) is ‘I’m doing the MoonWalk just for you this year’. Oh great - just for me the local charity case in the village … made my blood boil. I haven’t yet thought of a suitable comment back …

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Pinkrose…I really understand that one as there is a team doing the Moonwalk because I and a few others they know got breast cancer and they were so shocked.
Its their way of dealing with it, not feeling helpless etc. What I did was to sponsor them through just giving so i am a giver not a taker…meant more to them than anything!..and even though I hate the pinkness I will probably volunteer as a steward to support them and so they can see I’m not dead!!!
I am intending to walk across Spain in September…no not for charity but for the sheer hell of it!!!

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Hi lostinfrance, after re-reading my comment I now feel really mean and ungrateful when all they are doing are raising money and awareness! I just hate feeling I’m their charity case … Spain sounds really exciting, what a brilliant idea

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Muffet, that’s so funny! And yes, it might have been a bit mean but we are only human after all.

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Where to start?! I’m a blurter, not a thinker, I have discovered, and I think I may have taught quite a few people the lesson… when you see someone you haven’t seen for a while, don’t make your first question ‘How are you?’ - unless you REALLY want to know <grin>.</grin>

I’ve had lots of ‘you may not lose your hair’, which is easy enough to correct, and there’s no disputing it now.

‘The drugs they use in chemo are so much more advanced’… actually, a lot of them are EXACTLY the same drugs as forty years ago… epirubicin for one… the only difference with the drugs is that now they know they can give us even higher doses without killing us… (Yes, I know the anti nausea meds are hugely improved, thank god, and yes, I know we prob. don’t suffer as much as those having chemo forty years ago… but DON’T imply to me that we are having less poison pumped into us, because actually, if anything, we are having MORE).

‘At least you only lose a breast, it’s not like your lungs or liver or anything’. Where to start? If I wasn’t terrified of tempting fate (actually, have decided I’m not… fate has not been over kind to any of us, so may use this next time…) - I think the only answer is ‘not yet’. Please god, it may never happen - but bc CAN recur, as all too many of you know firsthand - and with a high grade/low age/large tumour/lymph nodes… well - I know my prog. is better than a lot - but it’s not exactly certain!

‘You’re the bravest woman I know’. Do you not know any other women then? No soldiers? No policewomen? No firefighters? No secondary school teachers? Granny wasn’t in the Land Army or a WAAF? My fight wasn’t a choice, and I wouldn’t have enlisted for it if it had been.

BUT for every kick in the guts, there have been ten times the supportive comments, or just no comment at all - a smile and a raised glass, and a conversation that is completely ordinary and un-bc related… and for all those friends, this ‘brave’ ‘follically challenged’ ‘fighter’ salutes you.

Sophie xxx

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Unless a comment is hurtful I don’t mind too much. I’d rather someone said something to me (that I could correct) than them not say anything. I’ve had friends and even family members that haven’t been able to ring up or write as though somehow cancer was contagious. To me that’s worse.

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My favourite reaction of a friend finding out I had cancer was that he instantly gave me the number of the local hospice! Hilarious!

A sense of humour has got me this far (two weeks post op and awaiting chemo)

H x

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I feel a real heel now for starting this thread, you’re all so very good with people I think I’m going to hang my head in shame now for thinking naughty thoughts about what I wanted to reply! :smiley:

I admit I haven’t had much more than just the shock from people finding out, and the vast majority of people have been extremely supportive once they’ve picked themselves up off the floor, but I know some people have had some gobsmackingly insensitive things said to them. Sometimes we WANT to say something really brutal in response (I know I wanted to be a bit more blunt with the reply that I did give but that would have been cruel) but we do tend to bite our tongues.

I’m still at the very early stages and still haven’t started ANY treatment yet so am still at the “telling people” stage. And as I don’t LOOK (or feel) “ill” it is a hell of a shock for others so once I’ve broken the news I tend to be the one turning the conversation onto other topics so that they know that I’m still me, that I don’t need to talk about cancer all the time and that I’m still interested in THEIR lives too.

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ChoccieMuffin - it was so difficult telling people to begin with - not so much that it was ‘hard’ to say I had cancer - but I felt that I was just blithely carrying on regardless and leaving this trail of devastation in my wake… It’s much better now that just about everyone knows - but there are certain comments that just really, really get on your nerves!! For me ‘the chemo is so much better these days’ one was the worst - I know it was intended to calm my pre-chemo nerves, but it really, really didn’t work. I did feel like saying ‘well, if it’s so f’in easy, come and have some with me then’… so I’m certainly no angel when it comes to dealing with others.

A few people have approached me with that hush, hush, softly, softly approach, I find loud belly laughs and inappropriate comments (from me) generally put paid to that :slight_smile:

Sophie xx

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ChoccieMuffin, you should be able to start any non-offensive thread you want. This forum is where we can say what we want and can’t say anywhere else. Better for us to rage on here about friends’ comments than risk losing those friends by snapping back at them.

If anyone had said they were doing the Moonwalk for me, I would have been a bit like ‘so am I supposed to say thank you?’ My 17 year old niece organised a cake sale and a fancy dress day at school in aid of Breast Cancer Care but just put reminders that the events were coming up on her Facebook page. I just put a comment ‘good cause Jess’.

When my husband told one of his friends that I had to have a mx, the friend said to him ‘well you can only work on one at a time anyway’. I thought that was quite funny. Also a male friend of mine from uni, who I haven’t seen for years, said when I told him I had BC ‘but you used to have fantastic tits’. I said ‘well now I have one fantastic one’. His response ‘does that mean you walk round in circles?’ I said I have something to put in my bra and he asked if that meant my husband couldn’t find his socks in the morning. All of this was a lot better a conversation than any where people tell me to think positive or about their neighbour’s aunt’s third cousin’s experience of BC.

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Hey cm,
Don’t feel bad for starting a new thread, folk don’t have to read or respond if they feel people are being unusually sensitive.

When people start telling me about their friends / aunts experience of bc is soooo annoying also the recent new year I’ve been told 2011 is MY year, that things can’t get any worse, like suddenly everyone can see the future. But I love each one of my friends dearly x

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Chocciemuffin - I think the thread is great and I didn’t mean to make you feel bad in anyway. It’s just that I really don’t get angry with comments but do get very angry with people avoiding me like I’ve got the plague.

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I tend to give people a pass as well, although a few comments have made me groan inside, but it’s because I know I am not very good at finding the right words either. Even when someone came to me last week to tell me they had just been diagnosed, I found myself saying let’s hope they’ve caught it early and everything will be fine, the chemo is so good blah, blah, blah …

Really the only people that have hit just the right note are my friends that are medics, or who have had a close experience with cancer. For everyone else it’s just impossible for them to understand, and when people are put on the spot it’s terribly difficult. The other day I was chatting to a friend and she started talking about retirement plans - as I have secondaries retirement is something I can’t bear to think about and don’t plan more than 6 months in advance, but because I look well now, she had just assumed that I will be fine. I found myself fighting back tears, and was mortified that I made her feel bad. I’ve tried really hard to be normal so people don’t feel uncomfortable around me and don’t feel they have to watch every word, but that inevitably means people forget and say tactless things from time to time.

The only thing that does occasionally get on my nerves is when I am told about so and so who had bc and is fine now 10, 15, 20 years later - whatever - and they don’t understand the person they are talking about had primary bc not secondaries, but it’s too uncomfortable to explain the difference, so I just smile and say that’s marvellous. I think in many ways bc has made me a much more tolerant person.

finty xx