Since starting this blog my mom reads every post and has become my editor, so if you find any mistakes then please feel free to contact her.
Last week she said to me, after I’d had a rant on here about some of the stupid things people say to people with cancer “what on earth do you want people to say to you?” and it got me thinking that I should try to help people on this topic and not just rant about what people say.
Please let me explain why I object to the one I find the most upsetting, which is when people say “you have to keep fighting”
Now I do understand that people feel they have to say something and they want to be positive for you and themselves but just consider this fighting rubbish for a moment.
I can’t fight cancer, my body has tried to fight cancer but it lost and Harry the bowel tumor developed. My body needs help to fight cancer hence the chemo. The problems at the moment with my lymph nodes are because either they are full of just gunk or they are full of cancer cells which my body isn’t fighting to well. I’ll post and let you all know when those results come in. Either way my body is a bit of a light weight on this fighting front and Mohamed Ali just keeps on taking his punches.
If after suffering with cancer, and for some people they do loose their lives to this shitty disease is it that they didn’t fight hard enough? is it that they feel guilty that they didn’t fight hard enough. The phrase ‘we are all fighting for you’ is also up there in terms of a stupid thing to say as again, as if someone doesn’t survive then is it the families lack of fight that caused it.
Karen and I are on similar journey’s and almost parallel in terms of time scale, is her family fighting less than mine? No of course not and if either of us don’t make it into remission does that mean that one of us has fought harder than the other? no it doesn’t.
When I told Ann from HR about my lymph node problem and that I had to have more tests, she just said oh bugger! Beautiful, words spoken like someone who knows how this shit feels. She didn’t say “oh you’ll be fine I’m sure” or anything else that is guaranteed to shut down any conversation with anyone dealing with cancer. Sometimes it’s okay to just say “that’s shit” or just to say nothing at all but just really listen to someone tell you wants happening in their world of cancer. Alison and Nicky are also very good at knowing what to say to me and I cherish them just being there for me to talk too. Leanne just makes me laugh as she will try to wind me up every time by saying “be positive hey mate”. Bless all of the special people in my life as it’s you lot who I actually feel for. Before I had Harry I don’t think I would have known what to say either.
Anyone who is reading this who has cancer to help your friends and family try this phrase on them as it does really work. So you tell them whatever it is, normally bad news following test results etc and before they can get to respond to you with “you’ve got to fight this” you hit them with my favourite to make them laugh and say “yes but at least I’ve still got my health hey” guaranteed laughter, or you will get at least of giggle from them followed by “oh that’s awful” either way you have won because you have brought laughter instead of despair.
Talking of laughter and you may think that cancer is nothing to laugh about but your wrong. Laughter is great and if you can laugh at yourself you have definitely won. I have a cancer joke for you. ‘Oh my god’ I hear you say you can’t tell a joke about cancer, well yes you can. Here it is and tell me you don’t smile. If you don’t then check your pulse as I think that you have have died, here goes…….
Doctor, leaning over a completely empty hospital bed: “The surgery went well. It had spread but I’m quite confident we got it all.”
LOL LOL LOL LOL
