Ignorant comments

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finallyoverit
finallyoverit Member Posts: 382
edited October 2017 in Stage IV/Metastatic Breast Cancer ONLY

** Post has religious undertones so if you are offended, please exit now. Not looking for a debate. Religion isn't the point of the post, rather a very insensitive, ignorant and incorrect comment made.


You are the only ladies who will understand this... I went to a women's retreat with my church this weekend.

During different parts, women would tell their personal story and how Jesus has impacted their life. One lady (who is a nurse) told the story about how her Mom was recently diagnosed with multiple myeloma. She went on to talk about her treatments and that there is no cure. She lamented that as a nurse she couldn't "fix" her Mom.

We all felt for her as her tears fell. She went on to say that she prayed many times "why me? Why my Mom". (That bugged me too.. but not as much as her next statement) She went on to say "why couldn't she have been diagnosed with breast cancer? You know, you just have a mastectomy and all is fine." Now, my church family does not know of my diagnosis nor am I planning on disclosing it anytime soon. I sat there literally with my mouth open. I'm not taking her comment personally, just amazed at the perception that having a mastectomy magically fixes all breast cancer patients.

I totally can understand her feelings of anger and sadness towards the diagnosis and poor prognosis but as a nurse, she should know better that a mastectomy doesn't magically fix everything. There are plenty of us who did everything "right" and still ended up in the stage IV boat.

I guess it just make me sad that there is that type of ignorance out there.



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  • bew66
    bew66 Member Posts: 81
    edited October 2017

    finallyoverit, I think there is a perception in the general population that bc is no big deal anymore.  I'm an RN, too, but work in NICU, and I had no idea until I started researching and found this website, that bc is so complicated and that just because a woman makes it to that magical 5 year mark with NED, that she is never completely out of the woods.  I think until bc becomes personal, most people are just woefully uninformed.

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  • finallyoverit
    finallyoverit Member Posts: 382
    edited October 2017

    I agree that most people just don't know until it affects them personally.. she told us that she is a surgical oncology nurse. Maybe I just expected her to know a little more about what her patients go through after surgery. Would be nice if that was the end all be all for bc.. but we know that's not true.

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  • Kandy
    Kandy Member Posts: 1,461
    edited October 2017

    It was a totally ignorant statement but I do agree that most people, even medical staff are so misled, uninformed on breast cancer. My mom told me when I was originally diagnosed as stage 3 that she didn't understand what I was so upset about. That no one died from breast cancer. She was also a nurse. These comments hurt but they make me more angry that people have been so deceived. Keeping everyone in my prayers.

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  • exbrnxgrl
    exbrnxgrl Member Posts: 12,424
    edited October 2017

    Nurse or not, too many people (even those who we think should know better) think that breast cancer is not that much of a big deal. I will confess that I knew little about bc before my own dx (I was shocked to learn that there was more than one type of bc. Stage and grade? I didn't have a clue). You can choose to educate people or not, but don't waste too much of your precious time and energy on being bothered by the ignorance of others, even nurses. FWIW, I am an elementary school teacher. In theory, my credential allows me to teach K-8th grades, but I've only taught lower grades. I would have to do quite a bit of review if I decided to move to grade 8!

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  • Groovywilma
    Groovywilma Member Posts: 450
    edited October 2017

    What a frustrating thing to hear! It's similar to when I hear people say things like "at least it was detected early!" No such luck for me! I will admit that prior to my diagnosis I knew VERY little about cancer, treatments, stages, etc. Too bad Pinktober isn't helping all that much to improve the conversations out there.

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