STEAM ROOM FOR ANGER
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I was trying to keep this private too, but my husband and a friend decided to make it their business to tell EVERYONE when I specifically asked them not to. I went into Walgreens the other day and had one of the employees come up to me and said "oh, I hear you have cancer" . My friend had been in there and made the announcement to the whole store. Maybe I wouldn't be so sensitive to this stuff if I weren't scared out of my mind!!!!!!
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Seq, I cannot believe what your friends and family are doing to you. Sheesh. I have to say, the majority of people I know have done exactly the right thing, made themselves available to talk more on the phone and they have listened to me. I'm just sorry everyone is making it so much harder for you.
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seg, that is horrible! My husband would have gotten the what for if he'd done that to me! That said, my ex-husband was the town gossip, and I can imagine him doing it.
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Yikes to both of your plights! I would be really angry at my husband for this for sure and he would hear about it nonstop until he had no choice but to apologize and send me lots of flowers! LOL. Hugs to you for enduring stupid comments about cutting off your boobs. I heard that one too...just said, you do it if you think it is such a good thing. Idiots! Yeah, I am old but I like my boobs and if I can keep them then I am gonna. Not to mention the seriousness of the surgery itself! Ugh!!
Here is a great thread if you want a good laugh about the stupid things people have said to cancer patients!
https://community.breastcancer.org/forum/31/topics/755825?page=51#post_2031101
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Oh yes, my attitude. I'd like to tell my oldest son and husband just where to go. I am sorry if I'm not as easy going as a once was but you know I've been through alot and still am. There comes a point when you start to think about yourself and what you want. I have worked full time outside of my home all my life. Stress at my job that I retired from is now gone. But I cook, clean, garden, plan vacations, and sew for my family. My husband he does household repairs, takes care of our computers and mows our small lawn. I dont need to be reminded to be cheerful and without worry.
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Said to me about an hour ago by a co-worker about the fact that I'm facing a bi-lateral mastectomy- "Just remember, it's just tissue!" When I told her it was kind of a big deal, she said, "Oh okay, oh okay," over and over like I was being ridiculous.
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Ok, I'll just say it. These people that are saying all this stuff--they are just STUPID!!!! I wonder if they know just how hurtful they are to us that are having to go through this!! Makes me REALLY mad, especially now that I know that I am not the only one that is having to deal with this kind of garbage!!!
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Oakmoss and Seq: Welcome to the boards, but sorry u have to be here under the circumstances. I totally hear what you're saying. I have had to "unfriend" insensitive bleephole friends for saying, "Why are you so negative? You're not fighting hard enough. It's like you're giving up..."
SHIZ!!! What the eff more do they want me to do??!! I was Dx'd w/ Stage IV with major mets to bones and several internal organs 4 mos ago right from the start. My BC didn't show up on ANY mammogram, only way they could find it was w/a dye-infused CT scan. Too late for me to chop the left boob off cuz the horse is already out of the barn. THERE IS NO CURE FOR STAGE IV. All they can do is try to keep it from spreading and give me "two or three" more years of half-way decent quality of life.
So, with this lovely prognosis in mind, I am getting my affairs in order cuz even tho I'm ambulatory now, I was confined to a walker/wheelchair a few months ago because of the FIVE compression fractures in my spine and spinal cord compression, all thanks to my new 2nd husband, Mr. Cancer. [I did NOT sign up for this arranged marriage!] Because Mr. Cancer is EVERYWHERE, I have to be prepared that things could go south very quickly. My health care provider has already sent me documents for my "end of life" decisions which they want to have on file.
My so-called "friends" keep saying, "But there are new Rx's coming out all the time..." Yeah, maybe, and I've DONE the research, too. If you just have mets to the bones (only), you very well could last another 5-7 years or more. But if you're like me, and have it in your spine, ribs, hips, pelvic bone, in the adjacent muscles AND your bladder, liver, adrenals, kidneys and spots on the pancreas, those survival years decrease. California just passed the "Death with Dignity" act, so you can elect physician-assisted suicide when it becomes intolerable (and believe me, it WILL...I had to watch my mom perish from soft tissue sarcoma cancer when I was in high school, and it was horrible). And my friends are going, "Why are you thinking about that now?"
Again, SHIZ!!! Why wouldn't I think about it??!! I just want to scream at them, "Shut the EFF up! I'd love to see how YOU'D handle a terminal Dx!" If it wasn't for prayer and one or two friends who actually "get it," I'd be on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Even tho I'm fatigued and exhausted from Mr. Cancer's presence, it's hard to sleep. This is NOT how I thought my life would end. I cry at least a couple times a day, not for me, but for the people I will leave behind.
I just handed in my office keys last Friday. VERY hard for me. I loved my job, which I had for 21 years. Fortunately, people at work haven't made asinine comments or asked stupid questions. They basically say, "You're in our thoughts," or "We're praying for you." Thanks. That's all you need to say.
KEEP RANTING, ladies!
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Lita, that is a good one too that I forgot to add to my rant. "you can't be so negative", "you won't get well unless you have a positive attitude", and "if you're going to be so negative, then I don't have anything else to say to you" (that one came from husband!). How can I not be so negative. I've just been hit with a ton of bricks and no matter what anyone says, good or bad, no matter how much they say they are supporting me and no matter how many times they I am right there with you, the bottom line is this" I AM GOING TO BE THE ONE WHO HAS TO SUFFER THROUGH THIS AND I AM THE ONE WHO HAS TO PAY THE CONSEQUENCES OF THIS WHETHER IT BE GOOD OR BAD!! That's what people don't get. Then everyone says, you'd feel better if you just accepted the support people are trying to give you. Which just goes back to the above sentence.
I am very sorry you have this diagnoses. Please be in touch with how things are going for you. Take care.
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Thanks, seq.
Just realize YOU didn't do anything to deserve this miserable disease. I just read an article in CURE magazine about the sheer "randomness" of cancer. It talks about all the people who smoke and DON'T get cancer (like my dad...he smoked for over 30 years, drank like a fish, and lived to be 85), and then people who NEVER smoked get it anyway. And people like my mom who lived a relatively healthy life and died from cancer at 48.
Anger can be a good thing. It keeps you strong. I am so infuriated by this disease. I 'thought' I did everything right: Didn't drink diet soda, stayed away from bacon and cold cuts (nitrates), drank organic milk, etc. But it seems like our bodies are programmed to betray us eventually. It disturbs me to think I'm being destroyed from the inside out. I'm not angry at God, I'm angry at my unfortunate luck.
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Oh gosh ladies , I feel so bad for what you are going through! If i could hug you right now I'd hold you and let you cry your heart out until there are no more tears.
I'm not Stage IV but I had my share of insensitive comments like that for years. That is the reason why now I have a very very small number of friends. Well no, that is not the reason, the reason is that I didn't pussy-foot and I told them in their face what I thought they should do with their opinion and apparently they didn't like it. Anyway, after my first year of anger in face of insensitive comments started cooling down, I found this youtube video that I would use every time someone would come up with an insensitive comment like that, and I'd play it for them and FORCE them to watch it. It had about the same effect as me rebuking them, honestly, only that this time they couldn't get pissed at me for "being rude" they just got the message better and got ashamed of themselves. Oh well, at least it left me surrounded by REAL friends.
Anyway, this is the video. The lady is wonderful, she had ovarian cancer not breast cancer, and passed away since the video was made, but I think of her often as she was an inspiration for me when I was going through the hell of cancer treatment. Feel free to use it for those all knowledgeable people (sorry you WILL have to go watch it on youtube as the embedding is disabled, just click the video image below and it will take you there)
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Thanks to all of you who responded. It's comforting! Lita, I especially appreciate what you said about how none of us deserved this wretched disease. About three years ago, one of the women I knew through my [now sadly discontinued] horseback riding activities said she had bc, and had had a mastectomy. She was always very fit, health conscious, and herself a doctor. I said something to a friend about how this shocked me, and the friend said, wisely, 'It's a crapshoot.' I used to know someone who had been a professional athlete, and he had the most fearsomely strong constitution. For the most part, he lived on Diet Pepsi, packaged corn muffins, and once in a while, he'd break open a can of tuna and eat that. I saw the ex-athlete out bicycling a few months ago, up a steep mountain road. He's in his early 80s now. I doubt his appalling diet has changed much. I don't draw too many conclusions from this, have never considered imitating him, but I'll just stick with what my riding buddy said about this being largely a crapshoot.
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Someone told me they saw a poster at their doctor's office saying "Cancer hates healthy bodies". If I saw that I swear to God I'd rip it down and tear it up right in front of the whole office.
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"Cancer hates healthy bodies" -- ?? I don't think I'm an idiot, but honestly, I'm not even sure what the point of that is.
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Other people: "Don't waste your time worrying about breast cancer. You could be hit by a bus tomorrow. And, you would have wasted so much of your remaining time worrying about breast cancer."
Me: Breast cancer is the bus that hit me.
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My fourth biopsy since dx is tomorrow...wire locate ultrasound. Someone said I should be getting use to all this. I'm so angry and so tired. Do you ever get "use to this"??...has life changed so much that it's not supposed to be a big deal? How much are you supposed to just suck up??? I was also asked if I was going back to work afterwards. I booked myself a haircut and pedicure for the afternoon...I dare work to call me!!! My hairdresser won't bat an eye if I show up with an ice pack in my bra. I'm so sick of this...
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Meow -
"Cancer hates healthy bodies."
Yeah, cancer hates healthy bodies so much that it attacked my (previously) healthy body. They had best work harder to find a cure in order to prevent "hateful" cancer from attacking more healthy bodies.
That doctor's office should add that to their poster!
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It is all about the misconception that it is the breast cancer victims fault they drank, smoked, didn't eat right or exercise. Making people believe they can avoid cancer by healthy lifestyle. This burns me to no end, whoever pedals that crap should get a big kick in the rear. Healthy lifestyle yes, it prevents cancer NO!
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I agree with you, Meow13. Probably, I should have added <sarcasm> to my above post about the poster to communicate my tone.
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Most of us know people who did all that "bad" stuff and died at 90 of old age, never having been diagnosed with cancer. It is really a case of blame the (cancer) victim.
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I still remember my oncologist saying that "besides the whole cancer thing, I was the healthiest patient he ever had". Grrr.
My paternal grandmother's eldest brother, started smoking since he was 11, smoked all his life home made cigarettes from home-grown tobacco and newspaper paper, ate all fatty stuff, drank vodka like crazy, died at the age of 107.
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Yorkiemom, there were people like that in my family, hard-living types who died of old age in their 80s and 90s, never sick a day in their lives. When I had genetic counseling in July, we were going over my relatives, and I mentioned that one of my grandmothers had lived into her 80s on nicotine and bitterness, and was never sick. The good doctor laughed. I liked him, he was an intelligent and compassionate man.
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My grandmother died a few years ago at age 100. My aunts and uncles have all lived until mostly 80s and 90s. I was only 40 when first diagnosed with BC and had breastfed both my kids for many years (supposed to be protective against BC). As my BS said, I "drew the short straw".
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keepsake, I know just like you I was so healthy and bang cancer.
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Lita, I agree, modern medicine knows allot, but then problems are found. I never let them give me the dx of fibromyalgia until it was convenient when the AI's that took my usual lifelong post polio pain to new heights. I too wondered about Fibro & post polio. The timing for the early recognition of fibro was concurrent to the research of post polio. But know one made a connection.
Since few knew that only 1:100 had weakness or paralysis, that 99:100 had flu like symptoms only, and almost 20 years since the last epidemic, docs had lost allot of understanding of polio. Plus, the Epstien Barr virus had just been identified and was associated with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. But EBV wasn't present in all CFS patients. It was a pretty bad decade in the sense that strange illness which were predominantly in women were appearing. The doc community was predominantly male. There was and still is allot of sexism in the medical community.
Another concurrent thing happened in the Endocrinology community. The TSH as a measurement of Thyroid Stimulating Hormone was discovered. It became the gold standard for measuring whether the thyroid was normal. Prior to this, for a hundred years, patients were treated by symptoms with disscicated(sic) pig thyroid hormone. Once the docs got glued to the TSH, they stopped listening to the patients. Previously, treated symptoms were now looked at as Psychosomatic.
All this happened mid 70's to the 80's. It wasn't a good time. But these problems linger even until today. For all these problems.
Now a new stupid, stupid. stupid, irresponsible study has come out. I just went on a rant in several pages. I was spitting nails over a couple of countries. I'll link it.
https://community.breastcancer.org/forum/136/topics/839123?page=5#idx_141
Hence, my question to you, did your docs blow you off with early complaints?
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Meow13, When I had my port placed, before the procedure, the PA asked me questions about my health status. I said "except for having cancer, I'm healthy" and then quickly added how strange that sounded. She said "You'd be surprised how many times I hear that!" To me, that says it all!
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Sas, yes my PCP blew it all off and thought I had just pulled or strained something. Then she thought it was either arthritis or sciatica. This went on for months until the pain was so intolerable that I ended up in emergency, and an MRI later, bingo, Cancer.
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I just had the nurse say that to me the day after my mastectomy. Really helpful, wish I'd eaten more ice cream and chocolate and not worried so much about how I looked. My husband is back in anger faze the last two days and has had a few drinks. Why does this piss me off so much? I'm angry too, but it's not very helpful. I'm sick of having to babysit everybody elses' feelings when it is me that has to go through it. I feel burdened enough without two ladies saying, "I think mammograms cause cancer." Wow. It is ugly out there.
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Went to work before the summer vacation, had a long talk with a colleague. She had an operation for DCIS and we had a lengthy discsussion about her choosing not to do rads. I said I had finished with all the other treatments and the next week I'd start with a month of rads (this is the third time I'm dealing with BC). I just got a card from her saying: I hope you manage coping with the chemo.
If you are not listening why do you even bother?!?!?! My psychologist claims that I have to believe that everyone means well. Maybe but I can also choose to ignore stupidity.
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