Stupid comments ....

Cheesequake, stare her down, and ask her to join you. Maybe she would like no hair as well. Hating this crap and stupid people...........

Another favorite of mine was, "is that your wig"? No just a really shaggy looking hat, bite me! In 58 years I have never been a blonde until I had to BUY it.

I still can't believe what my friend just told me..... I don't even know how to react. I'm 38 and my friend 34. She wants to get married and have kids, but no luck yet. We were talking about life and death, all kind of things. So she tells me : " please can you do me a favor -WHEN you dye and you see the God , please can you ask him to send for me  a good husband and kids". So looks like now she will be waiting for me to dye as soon as possible because she desperately wants to create a family. 

Cheesequake, I wish I was a  rude person and could answer her back. But I didn't . Just why, why people are like that....

Because they were hungry and chose to open mouth insert foot? I would have been speechless...I am at a point when people look at me with a pity look when asking how I am I smile and say "Fine, I am feeling great" . AND if they start talking about somebody with cancer I walk away....Rude but effective

Solfeo, you hit the nail on the head. I find that when you tell people, except for a couple of chosen few, you're just asking for trouble. I have a couple of colleagues who know, and lately they have been really impatient as I am not dead yet. They're constantly asking me how I feel or whether I've heard more from the doctors (obviously not since I haven't been back to the hospital since June and they're not gazing into a crystal ball and then calling me to tell me 'you will be dead by Christmas') or telling me I look tired, I should exercise (like registering for a marathon), I should eat less meat, I should drink less coffee, I should treat myself and eat cakes, I should go to church, I should move house closer to work ('why not move into a houseshare, you would have people to talk to in the evening?' - considering the tenant turnover in houseshares, before long, half the town would know I have bc) etc. If I find them articles on Pubmed, they hand them back to me as they find them 'too complicated'.

Like Ruska, the other day, another of my colleagues smugly remarked 'oh, you are really not smiling today'. I had only slept 2 hours that night because of back and leg pains (and, of course, when you are awake from 3am onwards with such pain, you wonder about bone mets), and I had 3 clients who seemed to have agreed to make my day a misery (you know, the 'which cock-up do I sort out first?' kind of day). Gosh, did I feel like hitting her...

OH Sandy, that is about the best cut, I've heard

Forgive them, Lord, they know not what they say. Years ago when a college sorority sister of mine had her bc dx at 29 (after years of fibrocysts and a strong family hx), I had no idea how to talk to her and what to say--I grew up at a time and in a culture where the word “cancer" was whispered, as if to stay out of earshot of the Evil Eye (or Ear). She & I lived 1000 miles apart, which made it tougher too--she kept working even as she had two toddlers to raise. But she was very candid, as if she'd heard all the stupid remarks before (and probably made a few when younger). She was forthcoming about each stage of her treatment and clear about her chances (which would have been far better today, 33 years later).

Part of the problem with stupid things people say to cancer patients is that secrecy I mentioned earlier.--especially among those of us for whom heart disease claimed most of our loved ones, and well into old age at that. In the past, many people didn't learn their friends & loved ones had cancer until hair loss from chemo, or even until their loved ones were clearly terminal. (Diagnosis wasn't as early then, either, and there were few or no life-extending treatments for Stage IV--so often patients themselves didn't even learn they had cancer until there was little they could do about it). Compounding this was the way popular culture portrayed cancer (the “Love Story Syndrome") as a consistently inevitable brave downhill battle, with the patient deteriorating imperceptibly by minute degree until she ended up looking pale but still beautiful on her deathbed. Movies (even TV series with medical advisors, who should know better) portrayed all cancer patients as bald and emaciated---so that's how people expect us to look no matter what stage we are or the kind of treatment we're getting. Heck, I had assumed I would be that way too, and feel like shit--I had never considered that, but for the side effects of radiation, I might still feel healthier than in years (just as at dx) despite being the sickest I've ever been. When people tell me I look great, I take it as a compliment so long as they don't add “for someone with cancer." (I know I don't look as good as I did before I began regaining more than half the weight I'd worked for over two years to lose, but that I do look better than before I started the diet and had my knees replaced).

But there may be another factor at play: people are afraid. Not of catching our cancers--nobody's THAT stupid anymore. No, it's because cancer struck us out of the blue like a mugger jumping out of an alley. They see that we got cancer for no apparent reason, and are terrified they can get it too (and to be accurate, some will). So the magical thinking begins: "I don't smoke, drink a lot, take hormones, eat badly, etc., tempt fate, or have a family history, so I won't get it. But SHE got it, so it must have been something she did or didn't do." Or sometimes they really DON'T know what to say and automatically stick their feet in their mouths. Remember, that for many of us there was a time when we, too, were clueless.

Yes, I wish I had told fewer people, too. I agree it strikes fear in most women and SOME times they just are at a loss for words. MAYBE they were afraid of saying the wrong thing .. or maybe not. I could never be sure. Jean, your hubby's friend said the right thing!

When I had my first mastectomy 19 years ago, I was back in the office after being off for quite a while recovering. Walking down a hall way to a meeting one of my male colleagues looked me in the eyes then down to my chest and said, "Oh, just half happy to see me?"

What a moron.

Frazoo, sometimes people say stupid things without even thinking what they are saying. But this guy was probably trying to be funny. It's so hard for us handle the diagnosis and loosing part of our body , not knowing what the future will bring us... And some people trying to make a joke out of it....

I had such stupid comments from a stranger that I just felt more bad for her than upset on my own behalf. I'm glad I don't have to live in her head!

fter having 2 separate mastectomies this year due to cancer the doctor ordered genetic testing. I was telling my sister I might have to have a hysterectomy too. She asked if I would be a man after all these surgeries!! And she is normally very bright. 😡😡

Thankfully my team of doctors, especially my genetic counselor, are all very comforting and considerate of my feelings. But some members of my family don't really understand what cancer means and they say things like "We all have cancer in our bodies and we don't know it" or "How could you not do reconstruction!?" or the one relative who thinks the entire medical system is a lie, and that cancer is created by the government.