The dumbest things people have said to you/about you
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sunnytn, the measure of your relationship is that she took care of you NOW, which is fantastic. After all, tormenting you when you were little was Rule #1 in The Big Sister's Handbook. I should know - I'm the middle sister so was both tormentor and tormented. My big sister was pretty mild with it actually, but me? Well, I was always a reader which my little sister wasn't so my vocabulary was always way ahead of hers. When we argued I used the most multisyllabic words I could and she would concede because, when you are arguing, how do you stop and say, What does that word mean? (I was subtly mean).
But both of them were wonderfully supportive and loving through everything I've been through with the bc, and that's what counts (and don't think I don't know that this is not necessarilly the norm).
Leah
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coonie--they wanted YOU to pay THEM to publish your story????? Good grief, how insensitive! Maybe THAT's what should be written up in the paper.
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Yesterday I saw a neighbor, who I thought was a friend but who went AWOL after my diagnosis, at my son's bus stop. She walked over to my car and said (I kid you not), "Hey, let me see the new boobs!" I'm not sure if she wanted me to stick my chest out or rip my t-shirt off. While I'm looking at her completely dumbfounded she then asks, "So did you go bigger than you were before?" Un-frickin-believable! (This is the same women who, when I was crying because I found out I had multiple areas of DCIS and was having a mastectomy, said, "I don't mean to be insensitive, but you do know this isn't going to kill you, right?") Where are the real life girlfriends? I seem to only find them on here!
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Kate!
Oh my gosh, I just...wow. 
I want to believe you made that up, but I know you couldn't possibly. Gee whiz, what is WRONG with people?! 
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Artemis- Unbelievable, huh? I found a good quote today-"It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." -Anton LaVey
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Here's a good quote-
"It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." -Anton LaVey
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kate33...I had a similar comment after my exchange surgery...one of the people I used to work with said Karen lets see!!! I had a heavy sweater on (can't wear those anymore!!!)...and had to turn my profile....I also wondered if I was supposed to take my top off!!! Part of the problem was that a young teacher who worked with us, had breast augmentation the year before my Dx (so 2 years before exchange) and I think all her friends thought my surgery was the same...funny thing is one of her friends was in charge of the social committee and I didn't even get a card when I had my exchange...did it on spring break....was so nervous...went out after work for a drink with several people (something I generally didn't do) and made a remark about the surgery was like in X hours and no one made a comment back to me...yup...I have having plastic surgery so it was just like the breast augmentation!!!!!! Such stupid people....I no longer work there...but it took me too long to realize how toxic the environment was for me....
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Sometimes I think it's too bad stupidity isn't lethal (but there are times since the Femara that I would be the dead one). LOL Darla
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Also too bad that the only kind of stupid that can be fixed is the medication induced kind.
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You just can't fix stupid.
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I think I have a good one.
My mother in law came to "help me" with my kids a few weeks after my BMX. (If helping means making her lunch:) After a long day we are sitting and watching the kids play and she says."when it rains it pours huh?" Not having any idea what she is talking about I asked her what she meant. She says well first "Jane" (my SIL), and then "Daisy" my niece and now you- you all had to have something done to your breasts. I said" ummm, Jane had a boob job to make her a D cup, Daisy had a breast reduction because she wanted to be a C cup. I had cancer and had both my breasts removed?" I looked at her as though she was nuts. Her response was-"yes, well you know- it's all the same."I think I drew blood when I bit my tongue and looked away, thankful she lives in another state and we don't see each other often.
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Wow Laurie! I don't think I could have bit my tongue on that one...
It is just so amazing how clueless and insensitive people can be.
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I would have said "OMG They had cancer TOO???" And just looked stunned!! Let her get herself out of THAT one!0
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laurie - I feel so sad for you having to have to deal with that sort of situation when you are still struggling with the emotional fallout from your dx and treatment. How sad too that she, like most of the other family and friends who make these ill considered comments, has obviously made NO effort to understand the emotional toll that BC has on us.
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Karen1956- I think a lot of people do think it's no different than augmentation. I think I even thought it would kind of be the same. I would be curious to hear from some women who had augmentation and then MX and ask then how it feels different because I just cannot imagine someone voluntarily doing this to their body. (Sorry if I offend anyone who's had augmentation but I miss my natural breasts.)
And, is it just me, or there a lot of truly evil MIL's out there? I have a son and I just cannot imagine ever some day treating his wife the way my MIL has treated me- BC or not. Laurie08- I'm nominating you for sainthood for not slugging yours.
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Sorry but my MIL is a better mother to me than my real one. She is such a lovely person and just loves me for loving and caring for her son so well.
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thanks so much for your kind words everyone. I bite my tongue because she gave me the most wonderful husband and I love him dearly. Of course before I went to bed that night I told him what she said and he claims she doesn't express herself correctly, she didn't mean it that way etc. My response was to point to my chest and say what the F#*@* was elective about this?
Raeinnz- I have two little boys and I hope I will be a good MIL. My paternal Grandmother had the same type of positive relationship with my Mom.
I try ladies I really try - but COME ON!
I also agree with Kate I would love to hear from someone who had elective cosmetic breast surgery and then had a mx and hear their opinion on the difference. But I can tell you one big difference (as you all know) I have no nipples and can't feel a thing. How's that for foreplay?
Sorry ladies feeling a bit randy tonight.
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In my first marriage I had the most wonderful MIL. I was hoping to get custody of her in the divorce settlement but no such luck.
Laurie08- I was lucky in that I was able to have a nipple sparing mastectomy. Of course, they're still "inoperative"- LOL! I hear that a lot of times in augmentation women lose the feeling in their nipples anyway, though. Maybe we should start a new thread and ask about this? It would be interesting.
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laura - good on you for taking the knocks and keeping the peace with your MIL. If she raised your 'wonderful husband' she must have a good heart in there somewhere. Maybe your husband is right and she just doesn't express herself well.
kate33 - lol, custody of your MIL. That must have been hard to loose a good friend like that after divorce. I was more than happy to loose my first MIL but I would miss this MIL very much.
I don't know anyone who had augmentation and then mx but my SIL had a breast reduction that got infected and it took 7 months to heal completely - she beats me in a scar contest although I have scars from armpit to armpit and right around the front! She wishes she had never had the surgery now. Was funny when she first had it as she said 'now my boobs are smaller I can see I have a large tummy'. She hasn't gone in for a tummy tuck though!
Rae
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My M-i-Law and I got on for the most part but did have 'issues' from time to time. I thought we had developed a good relationship by the time she died in '96. Then in '07, DH informed me that his mother, seated at my dining table, once told him that our youngest son--then 13--was not his child because, "he didn't look like anyone in our family." Apparently, F-i-law told her to shut up before she started something she wouldn't like to see the end of because, obviously, I wasn't in the room at the time. Lucky for her.
Our eldest son took after m-i-l's family, likewise DD, very much like DH's father's germanic genes with white hair, grey/blue eyes, honey coloured skin. Second son took after me, but youngest was born with the longest, blackest hair, the likes of which I have never seen in my life on a newborn. He truly resembled a baby 'Beatle.' He now resembles his eldest brother with a bit of me thrown in.
This conversation with DH took place over the phone while he was away at work, hundreds of miles away. When I got my breath back, I asked him in a very controlled, stiff voice,"What did you just say?" he made an excuse and hung up on me.
From that moment on, I felt such anger that I could feel my insides burn each time I thought about what she said. I was so livid with ma-i-law, I would have throttled her if she was around, and I was extremely pi$$ed off with DH for proving he was truly a 'son of that b!tch,' for telling me what she said, so long afterwards. I would think about this quite often and every time I did, I got the internal 'burn.'
We had a very angry (on my side) 'discussion' where I called him out on where, why and how this all came about and he didn't seem to think there was anything wrong with his telling me what she said. When asked, he said that he told her he didn't believe her! Yeah...right!
Six months later, my body started trying to kill me with pain. That woman had invalidated my life, not just by the fact that she believed I would do such a thing, but also, on some level, she believed that my genes were so inferior to hers, they wouldn't dare show up in her sons offspring................and then she believed it was her duty to tell her son what she deemed to be the truth. This was also the one way she knew she could bring me major grief as her son was the most paranoid, possessive man I have ever met and she knew it. From day one,he was jealous of everyone I knew, man, woman and child.
I know it's not probable, but a little corner of my mind believes that all of the above started off the mets explosion I was dxed with almost 12 months to the day after DH told me.
Sheila.
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I have a girlfriend or an ex-girlfriend now who says and does hurtful things...I received an e-mail from her, mind you I am going through chemo for the second time for IDC stage 2 breast cancer and sternum cancer and she tells me Oh, by the way my friend just died from complications from chemo...This still upsets me to this day...I couldn't catch my breath when I read what she said..Why are people so insensitive ...She also had breast cancer years ago...Didn't know her then but I think I would have never done anything like that to her...I would have been there for her...Some people don't think before they talk....Cancer is cancer and you will always fear it's coming back and people keep telling you, you have this beat, you are going to be around for a long time...No one knows what is going to happen or what we are going through...God knows what, how, and when.....Amen
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Sheila, your story gave me goosebumps! It happened to me too, but I never thought my MIL was involved and now I wonder.....
My H had been acting very weird and I was the process of deciding whether to leave him or not. He stayed home from work one day and approached me in the late morning. He asked me if our daughter was his!!! Our son has brown hair, brown eyes. Our daughter has blonde hair, blue eyes. That's the second I decided to leave him! I calmly told him that even though he and his mother have brown hair, brown eyes, his father, brother AND sister all have blonde hair and blue eyes!
I always blamed him for being the idiot, but now I wonder if his stupid mother put him on to it! He said he felt so much better that he had finally asked. I felt so much worse! But glad I left him... didn't waste my time explaining genetics to him either!
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Wow, Barbe, you're looking good, like a babe, the new hairstyle suits you.
Some mothers-in-law make the rest of us look bad. I just hope there is an after life because, if there is, I am going to find her and tell her what her husband got up to when she died. I'll teach her what a bad daughter in law can be.
Sunsets, with friends like that, who needs enemies, huh?
Sheila.
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AussieSheila- I don't know if it helps but you're not alone in the situation with your MIL's inappropriate comments. There was a letter in "Dear Abbey" that set off a storm of letter writing from women accused of this because their kids didn't look like either parent. Unbelievable that people could be that stupid! Makes you wonder how many men have secretly had DNA tests run to make sure. Morons!
Barbe- I agree. Cute new photo!!!
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shelia - your story makes me feel so sad and I am sorry you were hurt in such a terrible way. Some things should never be said and your husband was as bad as his mother for repeating such a potentially harmful comment. Like you I lived with huge stress levels in the 3 years before dx - after 18 months of stress after my beloved Dad took a massive stroke, I lost him 18 months before my dx and in the 12 months before dx for many reasons I worked myself into the ground - and I wonder if all that stress set off my BC. I am very careful now to pace myself and have finally learned to say 'no' now if I don't want to do something.
barbe - me too - great photo!
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I had breast augmentation before I had my bilateral mastectomy and reconstruction. IT IS A LOT DIFFERENT! Both are painful, although my aug was over the muscle, so it wasn't as painful as going under the muscle. An aug adds implants, but doesn't take away all your breast tissue!! When I had an aug, I took one Lortab and hated it. I managed the pain with just Tylenol. There were no drains and the scars were minimal. When I had a BMX, I was on Percoset for 5 days and had my drains for 5 days, too. And then the tissue expanders... we won't even get into that!
Those surgeries are completely diffferent. I will say that I felt more prepared for the BMX having the aug previously. I got the aug to fill out my curvy figure - ended up being a 34D/DD. Now I'm a 34D - I like my new size better.
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kittycat - thanks for clearing that question up for us. The other thing is that the mx is emotionally painful which probably makes the physical pain worse where augmentation only has a positive effect.
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My own mother recently told me "a few years ago what you had wasn't even considered cancer". I told that wasn't true that is was pre- invasive. She told me I was 'splitting hairs'. Ummm, so my mast and then 6 weeks of rads was just for fun???? Really? I should have waited until it had become invasive before treatment? Through my whole 'journey' I have discovered that my Mom kinda sucks. A little disappointing to say the least.
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Raeinnz, a mastectomy isn't painful. It's the reconstruction or te's that are painful. I had a double mast and left the hospital without a pain med! I had two drains for three weeks and that was a pain in the butt, but doable. As my surgeon admitted "It's just a deep tissue wound." There are no muscles, bones or organs involved. Surprisingly little to no pain. Those ladies who have immediate reconstruction or te's placed go through a whole lot of hurtin'! Their muscles are moved a fair bit and stretched and that's what hurts.
I had a REDUCTION years ago, and that gave me a pretty good idea of what I was going to be up against with the masts. It took a year for me to have any sensation on my left nipple and my "perfect" breasts never really felt like mine....
So now at 52 I have NO breasts! What an interesting life this has been....
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Dear Kate33, I would have willingly put up with DNA tests for each of my children in order to be free of the constant suspicion he treated me with. Once those tests became available, I told him to go and get the kids tested, because it would shut him up once and for all.
Raeinz, during our discussion re M-i-L, I told him that his mother had raised him to be a bigger b!tch than she was, and no Aussie male likes to be told that he resembles females in any way, so I guess I may have wounded his ego a tiny little bit.
Sheila.
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