YTS scheme, now available in adult bodies. You were very restrained.
LTL , don’t ya just love kiddies. So funny, and so true. They’ve made my day!
And Superfit, you’ve made me giggle to. You are so right, as I guess most of us had no symptoms when we started all this. And look at us now though! But please, if it ever happens again, forget the silent bit! I hope I have the opportunity to use your reply!
Sue x
oh dear …ladythatlunches
I sent a friend a thinking of you card last year when she was diagnosed with cancer (she was hundreds of miles away so I couldnt go to see her)and that was months before i had my diagnosis.
I rather like thinking of you messages …i think they are bettter than the get well soon ones which i received altho i loved all my cards …
Mary M
My gorgeous and supportive husband says that people are only trying to be helpful and that of course they can’t know how it feels. I told him about this thread and said I was going to be seriously stroppy with people who made these crappy comments. He asked me whether I really want to have the support of my friends any more. He has NEVER said any of these things to me and i love him all the more for it.
So… keep on being positive and remember breast cancer is a good one to get…
Catherine xx
And… I got a ‘thinking of you’ card from all the teachers at work about 7 weeks after I was ‘off sick’'. It made my day to know I was still thought of and that they were missing me.
Trying to BE POSITIVE…
On the card issue. My friend is also having chemo for ovarian cancer (I work with her as well) and I found a card from Asda of all places which just sent her a big hug rather than ‘thinking of you’ or ‘get well’. I had one from SIL that looked like a bearevment card which I put straight in the bin as I couldn’t look at it.
My neighbour who is 90 and also having treatment for oesopogel cancer (I seem to mix with a lot of poorly folk) when I said I would be having rads same as he had just shook his head and ‘I feel really sorry for you. You have my sympathy’ Ta very much!
I have been saving some of your responses but just not had the nerve to use any YET. Most of my friends have been great so will save them up for some others that have deserted the friendship room. You defo know who your friend are.
Anne xx
Actually Scotianne, your head IS a nice shape. Mine looks like a hammer. Boney on the back! Not a nice look!
Catherine x
When I was first diagnosed back in 2004 I was introduced to another lady who also had bc
She told me that her treatment had been a lumpectomy and radiotherapy followed by more radiotherapy for mets in her bones. I stood right in front of her and her husband and said ‘it’s incurable once it’s spread to your bones isn’t it?’.
They both just stared at me slightly opened mouthed. I still curl up inside when I think about it. Based on me saying probably the worst thing anyone could say I try to be generous when other people say daft things to me - for example the women who said ‘oh dear, God doesn’t like you much does he’ when I bumped into her and she saw that I was having chemo again (though she might be right because the chemo was for secondaries and the lady I was so dreadful too is a big church goer!!)
M :-S
Thanks Catherine for your comments on my head. I’m trying to be brave and an inspiration to all you other ladies. Commando all the way!
Anne xx
Scotianne, are you after the beautifully shaped head crown again? 
Sottianne does look rather annoyingly pretty going commando doesn’t she? Perhaps she needs to take the biscuit for annoying stuff?
Or a medal for just being another superstar getting through all this.
Love Catherine xx (Hammerhead)
I really am jealous of how well Anne looks with just the beginnings of hair growth! So far I’ve been lucky not to be surrounded by well-meaning idiots.
However, last week we were visited by good friends who are quite a bit younger than us. The wife , who is a bubbly pretty girl who doesn’t always get her brain in gear before she speaks, listened for a while to me saying that things have been easier than I had expected. She then turned to my husband and said sympathetically " I think it’s far harder for the person watching, isn’t it". Now my husband is feeling a bit sorry for himself after months of taking care of me, but his jaw literally dropped at that remark and to cover everyone’s confusion I just said “Yes it’s been very tough for him” while thinking “Just try having one day of what I’ve had for the past four months and then tell me it’s worse for him”.
I like this young couple and one day soon we’ll go out for dinner together as we used to do. A lifetime ago last September I might have put both my feet in my mouth in a similar situation. Biting your tongue and getting on seems to be the best policy for friends. Idiotic vague acquaintances are a whole other kettle of fish. My patience hasn’t been tried by one of those yet!
Kathleen
Hi all,
I have been in trouble before, posting on here…think I nearly got lynched… I have had many a thoughtless thing said to me over the years but tend to let them go and slot them in my ‘means well but 2 left feet’ box. Life is too short, well it is for me, to say a put down retort to everyone that says a dodgy thing to me, people are thoughtless, terrible at saying the first thing that enters there heads, but I try and let it all wash over me unless there is an obvious intent in there and you can usually tell.
I’m not a wuss at confrontation, far from it but decided that if people were caring and brave enough to ask me how I am then I should be gracious in what they have to say, even if inapprorpriate. I will correct them if they are totally off the mark but other than that I live and let live.
Good luck everyone
Clare xxx
Its the things the kids say that are more interesting… :o)
There pious lecture over LoL
Clare xxx
Thanks Clare that’s expressed really well… oh dear, think I might have been one of the lynch mob higher up this thread. I think you offer a gentle reminder that when this thread began it was about recognising the good intent in the things people say but safely venting the frustration it can cause. Lightness is key to this thread, I think, as is recongition that we are each vulnerable and sometimes vulnerable people inadvertently lash out a bit.
But hey, sometimes I open my mouth for one prupose… to change feet!
Oh dear, again, does that make the pious lecture count rise to two?! 
I do agree with both of the above posts. However It is great to have a place to moan and groan about the way some of these very well meaning people make us feel. For my part, I played down the whole breast cancer thing so much for the benefit of my Mum that she seems really surprised when I forget and tell her I don’t feel too good.
When I had my lumpectomy she was really surprised that it hurt. Not even sure if she realised I was actually having a lump taken out. Not quite sure what she thought was happening.She doesn’t see well so can’t do google stuff or read up on anything which is a mercy.
When she came at Christmas she simply thought I needed a lot of rest, which was true.
So I guess that sometimes it’s good when people get the wrong end of the stick. Don’t want my Mum to worry any more than necessary.
BE POSITIVE. Grrr
Catherine xx
Kathleen, that photo is just after my first shave not regrowth. It is more translucent and skinhead at the moment. Just had 3rd juice last Friday.
Julianna, so much envy. Going for beautifully shaped eyebrows/bones next. Then when I get my Cheryl Coles, well there will be no living with me. My lovely shaped head won’t get through the door.
Anne x
I guess in our hearts we know that the peeps we meet, be they family, friends, neighbours or whatever do not in general mean to upset us in any way. We know we are unduly sensitive to other peeps comments, I guess we feel very vulnerable when facing our own mortality in this way.
But, I feel that this forum is the one place that i feel truely at home, it is our sanctum, not theirs. A place where we can sound off about trivia, and yes, whilst hurtful, these inane comments are nothing compared to what is going on - you know, the cutting, the poisoning and the burning. No small wonder we find it hard to smile sweetly some times.
I’ve been spared many comments, as I have only told my family and a few close friends that I have bc. But I can honestly say that I feel that is too many peeps.
Sue x
Hope I didn’t upset too many folks by saying I hated the ‘Thinking of you’ cards I received and binned them! Looking back to that time several months ago, I’ve come to realise this was one of my coping methods. We each individually have to find ways to cope during the dark times the best we can and this was one of mine. It doesn’t mean I wasn’t grateful to the folks who took the time to send them and always asked my daughter, who was my official censor to tell me their names so I could thank them in the future when I saw them. I simply couldn’t face reading them as it made it all too real. I was in a very very dark place early on, especially after three operations (2 lumpectomies and then a mastectomy within 8 weeks) along with the dreaded results appointment two weeks after each op. I had also just been diagnosed with severe depression snd completely shut myself off from anyone but immediate family for some months after diagnosis. Thankfully, following treatment for this I’m much improved and once more leading a new ‘normal’ life as far as I can. It’s very difficult for others to assess our mood and innocent comments can be taken the wrong way by us when we are at our most vulnerable but I now try to remember they only say these things to us because they care and try not to take offense when folks say ‘the wrong thing’ as they’re struggling with it too.
LTL, I know JUST what you mean about the cards. Several years ago when someone bought me a bunch of flowers I was just fed up because all I could see was that I’d have to bother putting them in a vase, and then they’d die and I’d have to bother sorting them out and putting them in the bin. So I didn’t enjoy having the flowers at all.
Now? I buy myself flowers! Glad you’re heading out of that dark hole, it’s really not a nice place to be.
I think most people just don’t know what to say - I know I didn’t, in a previous life, before cancer. One of the reason I have not told many people that I have cancer. People get ‘weirded’ out and stop talking to you ‘normally’…
But I am not Ms Goody-Two-Shoes, I have such RAGE for the past two months that it is enough if you LOOK at me the wrong way I will be running for my pram and the toys WILL be thrown out!
Anne, beautifully shaped brows! Another envy - mine are fast diminishing… 
Julianna