The dumbest things people have said to you/about you

4happygirl, I agree with you. Minimizing it will somehow make it go away or it won't happen to them because they exercise, eat right and don't drink. No one wants to hear the truth that anyone can get this, you may catch it early or late sometimes it doesn't matter. People die from this disease even after doing everything "right" or finding it early. Until we really know how to cure it people are going to die maybe not as many people will die.

Some of the most egotistical people I have met were plastic surgeons. When they fail you are blamed.

Meow13: Yes, they're notoriously arrogant. This one is a good reconstructive microsurgeon and has natural good instincts as a doctor, but he's way over his head interacting with breast cancer patients. The sad thing about this is that I couldn't really get mad. I liked him and I just felt diminished being criticized for wanting to look normal with my clothes off as well as on. He created a prosthetic made of tissue that looks totally normal as long as I'm wearing a bra, which I understand is the standard for a delayed reconstruction (in my case delayed by complications, not by choice). Should I not expect to have a reconstruction that looks symmetrical in the nude because I'm over 50 and married? BTW my husband is much less concerned about the cosmetic results than I am.

HoneyBadger47: Thank-you! You guys are the only ones I've told about this. I don't dare tell my husband because I'm afraid he'll go to the guy's office to give him hell and I'll be banned from the clinic.

4happygirl - OMG! What an ass! Id have grabbed those photos he was pretending to look at and held them up and said, "Really these two breasts look the same to you? Would you like to borrow my glasses? I'm not asking for perfection, but it would be great if they were symmetrical and looked 1/2 way the the way they should!" Have you considered going to NOLA to see if they can fix it?

4Happygirl, you have been thru a lot to get to this point. You deserve to have a miraculous result with your breast reconstruction. Don’t settle.

I just received my billing statement from my PS today. The amount he is paid... I have no problem holding him to his perfectionist claim. I love my PS and he has been awesome. I go back Wednesday for my 6 week follow-up. I am interested to hear what he has to say about some imperfections that I am noticing. I have seen a patient of his that completed her treatment. The results were amazing

Logged on and searched for this topic because I had to vent somewhere.

Just got routine/restaging mammograms and sonogram. Asked to speak to the radiologist for an interpretation. His words, the primary tumor is "bigger and angrier."

Really? That's your medical opinion? Then the radiologist and mammogram technician gave me grief about not getting a mastectomy. Why do I have to make excuses for something that was NOT MY CALL??? (Stage IV de novos for BC don't routinely get surgery anymore. I was told to forget about it.)

Worried and grieved all weekend, and then talked to my oncologist who thought "angrier" meant "more spiculated." End result: I worried for nothing as the changes did not appear to warrant any changes to my tx.

Now I think about it, the same thing happened with this Imaging Center last year. They made me so worried, and then a week later, it turned out to be a false alarm. I am never consulting with those imaging techs again. I'll just leave it for my oncologist to explain it to me.

one of my facebook friends posted a "funny" thing, if I were a plastic surgeon I would 100% place a squeaky toy in breast implants. She is a registered nurse, I posted Breast cancer survivors?.

I should tell her she is lucky. Because the topic of breast implants and I think of the cancer survivor trying to put her body back together. As a registered nurse for a very long time you think she would be more sensitive.

I would like to shove that squeaky toy into some testicles. It seems to get reposted by men mainly

Okaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyy, Thanks. now totally prepared to take people out if it comes across my fb feed. 

Fb totally has employed censors that are brainless, if they couldn't see that that kind of comment was horrendous. Fb jails someone else for saying something that is innocuous.

Fb will fail as a company b/c of there censorship, and there stupidity. Alogrhthims  hahahaha......

For those on FB we just have to figure out where to go to Gab, MEWE.

Egads007  Wonderful choice!

The stupidest thing someone has said to me is actually something that has been repeatedly said to me in various ways. When I explained I was having a mastectomy and then reconstruction, I found that people would minimize the reconstruction fears I had about going smaller (not my choice, PS said he cuoldn't make me as big as before) by saying things like,

"You don't want them big anyway, they just get in the way!"

I know they mean well, but it's such an individual thing and so much a part of who we are. I was empathetic before, but I find I now respect even more every woman's right to look the way she wants, breast cancer or not, flat or implants, etc.

Sweep Pea--I got a couple of similar comments but in reverse when I was doing recon. No one wanted to believe that I WANTED to go smaller. "I'd kill to have big breasts like yours!" was something I hear from several people. I think that no matter what we choose for ourselves, someone else will be unhappy, or not understand, or disagree. As if their opinion even matters! The only opinion that counts at all is the woman's.

I just want to look like I did before. You know blend in at the beach not draw attention to myself.

I can't believe that I read all 313 pages of this thread, but it's good to know that I'm not the only person who has to deal with insensitive people and I'm finally at the point where I can laugh about it (usually). After reading all of the posts I have to apologize for the times I've recently told someone that "at least they caught it early". Two of my male friends contacted me when their wives were diagnosed with breast cancer and I did sigh with relief that they were both Stage 2. I was Stage IV de novo so I meant it sincerely that at least they'll have a fighting chance. It was never meant to diminish what they were going through, more a reflection of where my mind was and grateful that my friends didn't have to face what my husband and I were facing (at least not yet). Now that I see how many people are bothered by hearing that I'll have to be more conscious of how I react.

Two incidents that stick out in my mind -

I'm on the board of a small non-profit (treasurer) and when I was first diagnosed I got very sick, very quickly, and landed in the hospital for a while (IBC can be wicked!). I had to let the other board members know that I wouldn't be able to fulfill my duties for a while and wasn't sure if/when I would be able to again, which meant being very honest about my diagnosis because I had to make arrangements for someone else to handle all of the money stuff in my absence. About half-way through chemo I felt well enough to venture out in public for the first time since I had been diagnosed - a member meeting with roughly 50-60 people. One of the other board members came bouncing up to me and with a big smile on his face loudly asked in front of everyone "So are you cured now?" All I could do was stare at him as I tried to hold back the tears, he knew I was Stage IV and at the time my doctor wasn't sure I would live more than a few months. I finally managed to say no, I wasn't cured because it's not curable. Of course that led him to ask what I meant, and me having to explain in front of a room full of people that there is no cure for metastatic breast cancer, I was in bad shape and had already lived longer than my doctors originally expected so we were just taking things day by day, and that I'd be in treatment for the rest of my life.

The friend whose only words to me upon learning my diagnosis was "Say hello to my mother when you get there." In hindsight I guess maybe his mother died from breast cancer and it hit too close to home and he just didn't know what to say, but it really hurt that he never said anything else to me.