Hi - I don’t know if I am being an unsympathetic cow… I have just finished all my treatment except the hormone therapy. I know a woman who my husband rings handbells with (I won’t go there!!!) since I was diagnosed she just comes up with one illness after another - at the moment she thinks she may have shingles. None of them ever come to anything. It is as though she is is in competition. I am suposed to sit there and make sympathetic noises as she goes through the latest set of symptoms. I really do not feel I have the time and energy for this. I honestly feel like telling her to stop looking for illness and get on and enjoy her health - there is no glamour in being really ill and I certainly do not want to spend my social time talking about it.
Am I being unreasonable? - she is hasseling to have lunch with me during half-term and I really do not want to go.
Anyone else had to deal with this. Sorry to rant, just feeling a bit intolerant at the moment - I’m pretty easy going normally.
Accept the lunch invitation by saying “I’d love to have lunch - on one condition - we don’t talk illness, yours mine or anyone else’s, it’s my New Year’s resolution!” it may work or you could be like me and say.
I agree with Sharon you should accept the invitation on the understanding that you are getting away from illness during this lunch. Maybe she is struggling with how to deal with you (Strange but true) You may find that once illness is out of the way as a subject she may be quite a nice person. If she is till going on about illness follow Sharon’s rules and really go for it!!!
You say, ‘sickly friends,’ but it doesn’t sound like this woman is a friend, rather someone you happen to know. Was she there for you when you needed someone to talk to? If not, there is no reason why you should feel obliged to spend any time with her if you don’t wish to. I knew someone like this who always had something wrong with her too, and she also had a morbid fascination with other people’s serious illnesses. She tried to demand that her GP send her for a mammogram because she personally knew 4 women who’d been diagnosed with breast cancer. I told her that I far as I was aware, you couldn’t catch breast cancer. I think secretly she was jealous of the (medical) attention we received. When she heard I wasn’t having chemotherapy, she seemed quite disappointed and didn’t ever ask me again how I was. Yes, I dropped her, and it was such a relief. She was a drain. Life is too short to waste. Of course you don’t have the time and energy for someone like this. Spend your time doing things you want to do, and with people who care about you.
Very best wishes
I like your approach, timetraveller. Like you, Swanie, I have a friend who I find saps my energy at the moment and am struggling to find a way round it. Different people seem to have different ways of dealing with this. “Cancers I have known” seems to be a favourite - maybe your friend running through her various symptoms is a variation!
Hey Swanie, you are not being unreasonable at all and feel free to air your grievances ! I remember goin through chemotherapy and my sister in law called me one night to say and I quote… " i am dying with the cold tonight" wished I could have had the balls to say something back to her, but I was the one who ended up giving her sympathy… I would reiterate what timetraveller advised you life is far too short to waste and its only now almost being 3 yrs down the line since dx that I am now confident enough in myself to realise something - you know what if i dont want to do something, i wont and if i dont want to be in your company i wont…I have more than enough going on in my own life to take on other peoples petty problems. A true friend / genuine person will be there for you and understand but there are so many people who do not have a clue that they actually end up causing you more strain/stress and lets face it we have more than enough stress in our lives to be taking on more burdens!! and perhaps you should go with your gut instinct and let her know what its like living with an illness and lets face it we are talking a life threatening illness, which we have to live with.
I have a friend (quite a good one so I’ll forgive her) who has been complaining of her tiredness following jet lag after an 11 hour flight back from a holiday. Now I wouldn’t mind so much if she acknowledged that I’on my twenty something chemo and am currently exhausted 24/7. I don’t know when I might get a chemo break and planning even a European city break right now is pretty impossible. Ugh…
She’s usually pretty good and I do think this current thing is that she can’t handle my cancer story not being one of the good ones.
Hello everyone
I know how Swanie feels, my younger sister is only ever ill if one of us has something wrong. I did think a “serious” illness like BC would cure her but it has given her a whole new reason to think up impossible ailments. Started off with a spot in her ear which had made her deaf and has just announced that she has a tooth that is growing through her gum!!! I know where I would like it to be growing!!!
Unfortunately my older sister had a hystreectomy 2 weeks ago so the younger one is now in overdrive.We have turned it into a game, I have a chest infection so we try and guess what her next illness will be. The one who is closest bodywise can have a bar of chocolate without feeling guilty!!
Take care everyone
Hilary
I have a very good friend who has one trivial illness after the other as well. I’ve realised though over the last 16 years that we’ve known each other that she’s the drama queen (in fact her mum is the same and her sister) and they actually ‘enjoy’ having the attention. Goodness knows what would happen to any of them if it was something serious.
I very rarely talk about what’s going on for me as she more than makes up for it! But like Jane says, I can forgive her for that as we are good friends - it’s just that I’d swap conditions with her!
What wonderful sunshine we have today! I think life would be no end easier on everyone if people would take responsibility for their own feelings, be more assertive with others and spend a little time reflecting on “why am I feeling like I am” - and ask yourself: “what can I do about this?” and then doing what is right for you and the people you truly care about - forget about the rest. Further, I don’t think it makes anyone happier if we measure everything in life against our BC - yes, we are on a particularly challenging journey, but there are many other types of hardship in life and BC sufferers / survivors (or whatever you consider yourself) do not hold the patent on “the worst” that can happen - stop measuring other people’s situations against yours - they probably don’t compare anyway. Rant over.
I am a positive person even though I have secondaries (having first been diagnosed in 1995). It’s all a matter of how well you feel and how breast cancer has affected you, i.e. mets to bones, lungs, etc. and if you’re feeling particularly unwell you don’t need someone going on about how ill they feel because they have a cold, etc.
I’m an assertive and upbeat person and I don’t measure everything in life against what’s happened to me nor have I ever felt sorry for myself and wondered ‘why me’. We are all at different stages of this disease. I had 10 good years of remission and I’ve moaned with the rest of them when I’ve had a cold, etc (still probably do!) but it’s about putting everything into perspective of what’s going on for you at any particular time.
The ‘worst’ that will happen to me is that I will die far sooner than I should do (along with a lot of us who are in palliative care) because of secondaries but I’m hoping that the chemo etc will continue to keep me alive for a lot longer yet.
One of my good friends said you have ‘drains’ and ‘radiators’ in your life and get rid of the ‘drains’!!!
I don’t think anyone on this thread has come across as self-pitying or giving the impression that they consider their lot to be worse than anyone else’s.
I do like Pinkdove’s friend’s ‘drains’ and ‘radiators’ analogy.
Hey there - thanks for your imput ladies. I liked the tale of the younger sister Hilary, I think my friend is a bit like that. My guess is it is attention seeking or maybe she thinks that illness is all I can relate to. I hope to goodness that is not an impression I did give to people!! I’m not into comparing my illness with others, it is just a case of having been through it I feel I have better things to talk about and think about. I did really feel for another friend who had a raging toothache but that was real and she got it sorted.
Anyway I will take up the advice given - try having lunch with her and suggest we chat about more life affirming stuff. If she can’t do that then maybe I’ll give the relationship a break.
Thanks for the air space, it just helps to let of steam to people who have an inkling of where I’m coming from.
Shortly after I was diagnosed I decided to stop seeing people I felt were a bit “toxic” for a while - the ones who moan about everything. It was the best thing I have done. I have an aunt and her daughter who are both hypochondriacs to the point they are competing with each other. The daughter has nothing to do all day (wealthy husband) so she spends all her time seeing alternative practitioners who are basically charlatans who see her money. I don’t ever remember my aunty saying she was feeling well, she has been at death’s door with various ailments for the past 40 odd years but is now nearly 85 (a creaking gate as they say). Last time I saw her she was telling me of a neighbour’s daughter who had been diagnosed with BC. At the end she said to me “but I mean she has been very seriously ill compared to you as she had a mastectomy”. I really had to bite my tongue I’m afraid.
My brother is another one, I’ve barely seen him since I finished chemo, but since November I’ve had him on the phone droning on about having a stomach bug which has now become Norovirus; now it is psoriasis on his leg and I think he is convinced his leg will drop off. I just sit there and think “cancer beats diarrhoea” whilst I smile sweetly, but bloody hell they don’t half get my goat!