STEAM ROOM FOR ANGER

Lita57

Runor, I feel the same way as you...I've had to "unfriend" people on FB who have posted these "ridjculous" alternative therapies.

If they worked, wouldn't we all be taking them? Wouldn't the entire oncology community know about them and have tested them (double-blind) already? The stupidity makes me want to drive off a cliff.

I don't think my late mom would have posted anything on FB. She was a VERY private person, and I MISS HER every day. She died from a rare form of soft tissue carcinoma when I was still in high school, more than forty years ago. Oh, yes, we had our differences, but there's not a day that goes by that I don't think of her. She was the strongest, bravest woman I've ever known. The pain and suffering I'm going thru now are a cakewalk compared to what she had to deal with in the early-to-mid 70's, when they didn't have half the stuff they do now to keep you going. No carefully mapped out, targeted radiation...just blast the hell out of you, and then it was broad-spectrum chemo, with absolutely no pre-medicating with steroids, antihistamines, and acid blockers, and then they just sent you home to dry heave for hours on end until you finally started puking your guts out for more hours on end.

I remember those days all too well, because as a young teenager, I had to take care of her.

L

exbrnxgrl

I don't believe I have ever posted on this thread as I have been lucky with my tx, docs and family, but the FB comments got me thinking. Let me say, that I am very open about my dx. I figured that if people knew they could come to me directly and ask me about my health, then I could minimize idle speculation and gossip. this has worked well for me, and I have even been able to provide support for a few newly dx'ed women, so I feel like I'm doing some good, in a bad situation.

However, a few (very few) on FB are just dead set on pushing their own agenda. I had one "friend" who said she was glad that she had no medical insurance since she was sure that this was why she was healthy. Say what? Yes, she believed that if you go to a doctor, they will find illnesses (which she implied don't really exist) and then treat you to make money. I tried to help her understand the reality of stage IV bc, to no avail, so I had to hit the unfriend button. Another woman, the mother of a FB friend, commented on how I needed to strengthen my immune system, decrease inflammation etc. and then I would be cured. She said that cancer is easily curable, but, you guessed it, BIG PHARMA and the medical profession! Oy vey!

I'm not really angry at these folks, but I just don't need them in my life in any capacity, even FB. As for the big pharma conspiracy, I do question the obscene amounts of money we pay for drugs and the equally obscene profits that put shareholders above patients, but... I do believe they are working toward better tx and a cure, even if it's far slower in coming than we want. After all, I imagine their loved ones and themselves get cancer too. No, I'm not angry just saddened sometimes by the fact that some folks, who know little about bc, feel compelled to give unsolicited advice.

KatyK

Got a great meditation from my counselor today that I think will help me deal with family members that have not been supportive. Maybe it will help others as well. Say this morning, afternoon and night every day for 21 days. Longer if needed! While doing this meditation imagine the person you want to forgive on a stage of some type and bathed in a light of goodwill. The releasing and letting go are not intended to be literal. But sometimes there are people we actually have to let go in our lives. Here’s themeditation

I forgive you for not being what I need. I release you, I let you go. I only see good in front of you. You are free and I am free. I only see good in front of you. I only see good in front of me. I release you, I let you go.

DancingElizabeth

KatyK - great meditation advice...

Exbrnxgrl - Interesting. I've thought about posting my situation on FB. But, just not strong enough of a person to do it. I'm too sensitive and easily upset by things people say...

And, part of me, just wants to go somewhere (even if it's just on FB) where cancer - isn't something that's part of me.

I feel this extreme urge/need - to be free of it. Even though - I know I will never be free of it. I will always live and feel - like - something is stalking me. So, to I guess *pretend* (for lack of a better word) that I never had cancer - makes me feel free and normal. Even if it's not reality. If that makes any sense...

molliefish

I have intentionally not posted anything of FB about my cancer. For over 3 years now. My friends and family who know I had it,get it. The others don't need to know. I felt the same way when I had my brain tumour in 2009. Never told a soul on FB and still haven't. It's pretty peaceful on my FB. :-). Love to all

marijen

Well I got my own dose of cruelty tonight when my sister exclaimed she doesn't have the breast cancer gene so she won't get it! Or was that stupidity talking? Anyways it pissed me off that she was so insensitive and I educated her a little. Needless to say I think she's still out there wuth her head in the sand. : ).

I never have done FB. But runor you always speak for me too.

runor

KatyK, forgive me but no. Can't do it. Can't paint it all with a pretty brush and let it go. Nope. I did read your meditation, which brought to mind those people who tell me to add lemon juice to my coffee to acidify my body because cancer can't live in the presence of acid (have you MET me?). Or people who cut out wheat (are you nuts? Where do you put your butter if you don't have toast?!) Or I should give up alcohol and chocolate - and then go berserk in a mall and push over a soup can display, yeah, no good can come of that. I read your meditation,' I release you, I let you go', and I pictured all those good advice people strapped into a great, huge sling shot, duc tape over their mouths as I pull the trigger. BOING!!! I release you, I let you go, through the air into the next county. Buh bye, buh bye now. Take your good advice and fly away.

Meow13

I find going to Barbados helps me, so very far away.

marijen

Hahaha you two! Meow, do you need someone to travel with? I let my sister go! BOING! I forgive her OMG

smwusaf

I wanna go to Barbados! I think that would help me immensely.

Lula73

I go to Mexico to escape it all! 8 days of all the cold frosty fruity drinks and delicious food i could want, and laying on a beach being waited on hand and foot by attractive men who even adjust my umbrella as the sun’s path changes throughout the day....

I have a credit on a trip we had already paid for before the BC turned our lives upside down last year that I have to use by end of July. I’m so hoping I can use it, but DH’s schedule doesn’t look promising and I honestly don’t think it will happen. 🙁 If any of you ladies wish to escape it all and can go before end of July, Iet me know and we can work something out.

70charger

Barbados + drinks lets everything go, including tops & bottoms!

KatyK

ok, Runor, thanks for that image! Definitely put a smile on my face! Not easy and not sure I can do it. The reason to forgive is for you, so you don’t have the burden of negative emotions and hurt . Forgiveness does not mean what they do is ok. The truest sense of the word is letting go of the hurt and anger for YOUR benefit and mental health. I can do this with people I no longer see but this meditation is for a sibling that lives near me and has really hurt me with her lack of empathy and compassion. I honestly don’t know if I can keep her in my life because of the emotional pain she causes me and she just doesn’t get it! The releasing and letting go are metaphorical but it may have to become literal for me to take care of myself.

Meow13

Oh yes it helps. Swimming in the warm turquoise ocean with the sun shining turtles come by to check you out. Love it.

GraceB1

Just a minor rant but reoccurring. I was out picking blueberries (yumm) at a farm yesterday and the lady across from was complaining about her arthritis. I said that doctors would make as much money from discovering the cure for arthritis as they would from finding the cure for cancer (ha, ha). She then said that they already have the cure for cancer. Drs just want to suck the money out of us by keeping us sick and treating us.She has 10 homeschooled kids. The ignorance keeps getting passed down.

Egads007

Grace, ah yes...the cancer conspiracy. They’re keeping the secret cure tightly lidded, so tight that my father’s MO wouldn’t even clandestinely treat his own mother...and let her die instead. I guess he got back on track after his leave of absence and did the same for my dad. *eyeballs rolled*. I don’t know what steams me more, the conspiracy theories or the snake oil salesmen.

Mominator

It seems the idiots seem to fall into these camps: 

1. cancer can be prevented by doing the "right" things (eating well, exercising, taking certain supplements, etc.),

2. cancer can be cured by doing the "right" things (similar),

3. the care for cancer is being withheld by (big Pharma, doctors, etc.)  to make money

4. Boo-hoo, my loved one has cancer, but it's really all about ME!

No one wants to get cancer. It is scary. 

I have observed that some people think by doing the "right" things (eating well, exercising, taking certain supplements, etc.), that they can prevent cancer in their lives. It is an extreme form of control. Similar to preventing other terrible things from happening by doing the "right" things: don't walk alone in bad parts of town will prevent you from becoming a victim of rape or robbery. 

While certain precautions can reduce the risk of some things, bad things can still happen to anyone at anytime. A woman can be cautious but still be raped by a friend or a acquaintance or her date. A person may not be robbed in a bad part of town, but the trustworthy financial consultant can later embezzle the entire retirement fund. I know women who had very little of the known risks, but still got breast cancer (and many died). 

Sorry for the idiots out there. 

Meow13

I think ShetlanPony had it right, people are afraid and want to have a reason to believe they won't get it.

ShetlandPony

Grace, I don't see why it is relevant that the ignorant woman home schools her children. There are also examples of ignorance being passed down among school families. Let's avoid stereotyping.

ShetlandPony

Very good idiot categories, Mominator. Here are two related ones, from my stage iv perspective:

5. You can't have cancer because you don't look sick. You can't be on chemo because you are not bald. Your difficulties are not treatment side effects; I have that too, we're all getting older.

6. You are a liability and are likely to fail (in this group, this job, etc.) because you have cancer. You will probably keel over at any moment. And you remind me of my own mortality. Therefore you must be excluded or denied this opportunity. Leave it to the rest of us who are in no danger at all of getting sidelined by an illness or accident. (Or even cancer, because we are doing the right things. So I won't even consider that it could happen to me and how would I want people to treat me.)

Castigame

Well, please allow me to add my rant for a bit. 

In random order,

I got so sad  at the church last night observing this healthy 20 month  old baby boy who was perfect in every way.  Not a single fuss every mass.  I still mourn the loss of my baby I never had who was taken away from me via total hysterectomy. 

I try not to be a cry baby but there is always some  pain which makes me nervous re what if...

My 91 yr old father had two strokes in one month.. He is at  a nursing home with feeding tube and wearing diapers 24/7. He has been a royal ass all his life to his family. Wicked me thinks his karma came and bit him in his behind.  He wants to come home so bad but he can't.   Mom is 86 and just diagnosed with mild to moderate dementia. She cannot even take meds which may be able to delay progression. Mom rearranges everything hides little money she has  and don't remember where.. Her current home care is on remission from brain cancer and mom refuses to find a new one bc mom sees me in the lady..  The attendant uses mom's sympathy to her advantage. She cannot work anywhere else.  The lady does not cook or clean even though she spends 6 hrs a day in mom's tiny apartment. she only does errands and little bit of laundry.  I know my parents days on this region are numbered but the current situation is horrible.  I even felt sympathy for pops when I picked his soiled pants. 

And there are my sister-in-laws who reminds my hubby why mother in law cannot be near her children. Hubby repeatedly told them  MIL needs at least $700 more every month in order to do that. One SIL ignores it and tells him the same back while the other told him she will come up with $50 per month.  I had to remind hubby he should not co-sign apt lease for MIL since she cannot get a lease on her own based on her social security.  MIL recently got a dog despite opposition from hubby.. Now MIL cannot even pick up dog's poop and asks my hubby to come over to clean her place. 

Me and my hubby  really want to do bleep it to daily grind so bad in light of all this but cannot do it yet. 

p.s. I would even want to go rob a bank if I could. 

  

runor

I think (oh those are such dangerous words) that extreme reactions and life changes are a form of begging. Sacrifice. Look, God Of Cancer, what I am willing to give up. I give up butter on my popcorn, I give up suntanning with baby oil , I give up staying up late and go to bed early. I give up stress and fun and everything that gave me one iota of pleasure. I have changed, oh God Of Cancer, I have been smited (smote? Smitten? No, that's wrong) for my badness once. I have had the cancer and it seems to be gone and if I grovel before you with all the things in my life that I enjoyed and took for granted, if I lay them on the altar before you and light them on fire and live a life of austere misery and self control and superior deprivation and diligence, more strict and adherent than the rest of those casual cancer clowns, will you please, please, please keep me free of cancer forevermore? See, I recognize my evil ways. I am willing to live so much less of a life than before. It will all be worth it if this sacrifice will KEEP ME SAFE! Will it, GOC? Will it?

NO

I will not accept blame. I did not EARN this, I did not DESERVE this and no, it does not 'serve me right'. And as such, there is no penance, no atonement, no soul sucking sacrifice that I need to make to ANY god of ANY sort. Since no god has stepped up to claim responsibility, then no god will benefit from the burnt ashes of my former pleasures.

Do I want to die? Hell no! But I'm going to anyway. True story. I've just got the memo that my best before date has come and gone. But that was always going to happen. Only I didn't think about it. Now I do. Can't un-think about it. That's the bitch.

A friend told me that she has cancer in her lungs. She should have quit smoking. What did I tell her? I said, do you like smoking? Yes, she does. THEN SMOKE!!! Like stopping now is going to do one lick of good? I know a woman who never smoked a day in her life and died of lung cancer anyway! She ate lean, never drank, never smoked, never swore, never gambled, never drove fast or wore slutty jeans. She lived a life that looked pretty perfect and self controlled and healthy and wise and like no flucking fun at all and she was dead before she was 65!! What's the frigging point in that?

I have no problem with those who get religion when they get cancer. Converted to the Right way of living and Right way of eating and exercising. If you have a solid reason to change something detrimental, go for it. But when your preachy sacrificial anxiety, your pleading with the absent gods and throwing pleasure on the altar gets in my face .... we're going to have a problem. If one more person tells me to cut out sugar, I am going to put down my can of Coke and punch them right in the throat.

If my life is about to be shorter than planned, I am going to eat all the chocolate bars and non diet Coke that I can. Because nothing, not even giving it all up so the God Of Cancer passes you by, will guarantee you one, bloody thing. Eat the damn cake.

Meow13

Oh runor, I am waiting for the God of cancer to get after me for falling off the treadmill wagon. It has been over 2 months since I stopped, please forgive me. I will try to get back on. But God of cancer, look at my garden I worked so hard. Will I be given another chance? I hope I get a good report card on my blood numbers, I studied so hard but I have been eating cupcakes, I promise to quit.

I feel like confessing my lifestyle sins because after all I got cancer I must be doing something wrong.

Or I can go on vacation.

runor

Go on vacation. And eat those little cupcakes with the sprinkles on top that are more icing than cupcake. Oh my god. Now I want one!

edited to add, LIE, I want at least 6, not one. Who am I kidding?!

sas-schatzi

kindle .....kindle is shit

Runor yay. Great statement. German chocolate

Cpeachymom

runor- lol! I actually normally eat healthy, but I have to admit, after my diagnosis, I was like, “what's the point? I already Have Cancer!" So I kind of went on a junk food binge. And then the holidays came and there was food and sweets galore...

Now I'm back to normal eating, mostly healthy, seems to help with my SE. But my husband went and bought apple pie and cool whip And beer for me last night, because what's more American than beer and apple pie?

And I will enjoy them, and I will Not feel guilty. Because it’s not just about staying alive, it’s about Living!

( I know beer isn't an American thing ) lol

DancingElizabeth

Grace - I agree with your post...

Also, on the subject of eating "healthier". I just eat - whatever I'm in the mood for. If it's a doughnut - I have one, maybe 2.

The only thing I do right - is workout. But, I don't do it for my physical health. Only for my mind. Because, the endorphins give me a joy that I can't get from anything else...

Lula73

saw this in my FB feed today and thought it went well with the topic of how others tell us to cure our cancer:

Maire67

Just found you. I Love all your posts...you have made my day. I'm laughing like crazy and no one knows why. I just had guests for dinner who brought a cake and then declared they shouldn't eat it because they needed to lose weight, brought a bottle of wine and asked for diet coke ( it will never darken my fridge),asked me if I lost weight ( I said no thank God) and then sent a thank you telling me how great I looked (other than being clean who the hell cares?)

Maire

Egads007

Lula - thank you from the bottom of my heart...don't know which is my fav, but #3 runs a close first!!! Permission to repost this on another thread?