Sharon, a good kick in the crutch seems to be in order.
I know how rude was he. I couldnt believe it. I thought being told by two customers in our tearoom that cancer was just like having cold nowadays as so many of their families had had it was bad enough. Dont know which one tops it. You could tell they hadnt had it or they wouldnt have felt that way. !!!
I have to say that this topic has brought a bit of a smile to my face, people are so ignorant it’s unbelievable. I am not a sufferer but my 40 year old daughter is, lumpectomy, then chemo, then mastectomy and then radiotherapy. I told one of my closest friends and her reply was “don’t worry she will be fine”!!! I wonder what she would say if that was my reply if it was her daughter who is the same age. None of us ever know what is around the corner, I never thought this would happen to my family, but needless to say my friend is no longer part of it.
I’m fairly laid back and tolerant, but found it hard this week after church. It was hot. I took my wig off to reveal fuzz and one lady wanted to lips my head! WTF?
No words cfor man in bank!
worse experience of people was when I was sat in a restaurant in lytham, it was winter so had hat on,took it off, to reveal baldy head …(but so is my hubby !!! hes bald to) and the women on opposite table just got up and left,they left a full bottle of red, their loss. Thinkin back it did hurt at the time but maybe .just maybe one of them was awaiting results or treatment…but it did upset at the time
take care x
Ninja your so funny, but I agree with you! Kick in the crutch for man in the bank, swift and direct…!
I have a friend who phoned me up to keep in touch,went to great lengths to tell me about a walk she did last week-end to raise money in memory of a young boy (14years old)
who has recently died of leukaemia and then told me about a friend who is pregnant and also has leukaemia and then a colleague of her husband who always seemed sickly and has just dies of leukaemia, but it was okay because lots of money is raised to fight breast cancer !!!
Made me feel so uplifted - NOT.
Brace yourselves people, this is a corker I’m still reeling from!!!
Colleague just rang to see how I was doing, but really wanted to talk about her new job! Ok I thought, the world doesn’t revolve around me I know!
She then got back on to how I was doing and if I had healed from the op and told me really I was lucky that the breast hadn’t been removed altogether, true I thought but don’t really need you to tell me this, and then BAM!!!
“And let’s face it there’s much worse deformities out there isn’t there, at least you can hide yours!!!”
Guess who’s calls I will be screening from now on!!!
I wonder if she thought about it afterwards??
You’re right, simonewithane, it really is a corker!
Apparently my stubbornness will get me through this difficult time in my life!!!
And yes it did leave me Lost4Words
Slendablenda, before I was diagnosed I didn’t realise my friends knew so many people with cancer, isn’t it nice how they now want to share this knowledge with me 
NOT!!
L4W
This topic has really kept me going …It has made me smile so many times. I thought initially that I was being sensitive to what people were saying and found I spent more time making others feel better about my diagnosis than actually saying how I really was feeling. My top comments are:
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My last night in hospital I was settling down ready to go to sleep…very young nurse pops in to give me my meds and settle me in we are chatting away and she said to me " gosh aren’t you very positive and chirpie" I replied I was glad to be getting out of hosp after ten days to which she out of the blue said " but are you not worried about your pathology report" NOOOOO…but I am now …I thought she knew something I didnt and didn’t sleep a wink all night thinking it was curtains for me .
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A so called well meaning friend… told me I was really lucky that I had a husband both for support and that I didn’t have to go back to work right away unlike a friend of hers who incidentally had a totally different diagnosis and treatment plan to me ( I work for an airline and just couldn’t see myself carrying my chemo drip all round the world with me) she went on to tell me how much harder it had been for this girl and that a husband was what she was missing I just looked at her thinking luck and cancer are two words I don’t associate together.
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the girl who ran across her garden when she saw my car to tell me how well I was looking …I smiled until she proceeded to tell me in great detail about three other women who were sadly losing their battle and again I was the lucky one as now I would always be checked…I headed home and broke into the jaffa cakes that day.
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It’s gods way of telling me to make changes in my life…I was obviously and unconsciously holding onto stress and my cancer was the way my body was reacting to it.That was a jaffa cake day too.
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the same above well meaning friend told me if she had the same as me she wouldn’t have chemo or Tamoxifen she would go down the natural route and put a great deal of pressure on me to listen…she has one friend who has studied this and drove me nuts with her opinions on it… I got tired of saying yes healthy alternatives have their place but orthodox medicine and treatment was the way fwd for me to which she replied “I think you are crazy and ruining your body” grrrrrrrrr
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Positive thoughts give positive results I lost count of the amount of people who said this to me … and I was a good person to get cancer as I would deal with whatever came my way well. sheesh…it almost made me feel I had ordered it on line like one does with a pair of shoes they might fancy.
Hi Scottdolly - I loved the ‘jaffa cake’ comments!! Im off to the cupboard…to find the jaffa cakes after being told for the millionth time to STAY POSITIVE!!
Sadie Xx Xx
Hiya
When i was first diagnosed 6 yrs ago now, my ‘well meaning’ sister in law said “dont they say the higher up your body you get cancer then the less serious it is!” The worrying thing is she was deadly serious. So all you folk out there with brain tumours there is no need to worry. The same person said to me recently that a colleague of hers was ill with bowel cancer and she said " i am not being funny but she is much worse than you", like it is some sort of competition. Needless to say i haven’t told her i have bone, lung and liver secondaries as god knows what logic she would read into that.
Best wishes to all…Trish
Hi all,
Two very well meaning friends have each independently questioned why I have been worrying about hiding my scars. I have a very big, very noticeable scar on my chest from emergency surgery to remove a Hickman line and I have recently been wearing scar reduction patches to try and flatten it and remove the redness. I hate the fact that unless I wear things to hide it people’s eyes are constantly drawn to it.
The thing is, both friends used the expression ‘wear your scars with pride, don’t hide them away.’
I am not ashamed of having bc but why on earth should I want to wear the scars as some kind of badge of honour? I have a cousin being treated for bowel cancer and no one has said that to her!
People do say some very strange things!
Nymeria x
They do indeed!
I am not ashamed of my scars but do not want to share them with everyone and people do not need to be reminded of cancer every time they see me. A slightly higher neckline achieves that.
Ask them to rethink, how would they feel if it was them and there was a treatment available to minimise scars in this age of Botox and Facelifts?
Sat in the doctors waiting room this morning for the fourth time this week, someone said - “I heard you’ve been back in hospital”, I didnt go into all the detail but said yes I had, the next comment was “so your all better now then”. Shes the 4th person to say the same thing - 2 of them at the doctors and one on the way out of the hospital, I must be feeling a bit better as I didn’t rip their heads off or feel the need to explain in detail lol
I think one of the most annoying things that people say to me is ‘so you’re cured now right?’ or asking if I’ve had the ‘all clear.’ It’s so hard not to launch into a long explanation of why this isn’t the case!
Hi,
I have not had chemo but hope I can join in, I have had some problems over the last couple of months related to bc. My Mum came over last week and said “my god you look really awful” cheers Mum did’t actually feel that bad that day! Then a couple of days later a very good friend came to visit and I told them about Mum’s comments they said “well i wouldn’t say you look AWFUL, you just look very, very tired!!” Thank you good friend.
Then to cap it all, yesterday I said to my daughter (really felt good yesterday) “look at my face today” (it’s been pasty and drawn looking)She said “oh Mum you have jowls now”.
With family and friends like these who needs enemies!!
Just one worry though I think I look reasonably well, obviously not to my family, who knows what strangers think?? xx
How about this for a stepdad belter!! “Don’t worry about losing your hair, there’s lots of women who have it cut really really short, look at Sinead O’Connor, and she didn’t even have cancer”!!! Confused.com!!!
You could tell the ‘So you’re cured now’ people ‘They only call it No Evidence of Disease’ (or No Sign of Malignancy). in one of those ‘patient’ tones of voice. Those who actually care may be taken aback that the good news is no more positive than that.