Dumb Things I have Been Told -

[Debi]

Couldn't decide where to put this but decided to put it in Survivors, since that's where it applies -

What's the dumbest thing someone has said when told that you had lung cancer?

Mine has to be (just recently) - I told a neighbor that I was a 4 year lung cancer survivor and she said "oh my God, I never would have guessed - you have beautiful skin". I must have looked puzzled because she quickly stammered- "Well, I would think if you had lung cancer your skin wouldn't have such good tone".

Ummm yeah. Maybe it makes some sort of sense somewhere and would if I was ill today, but would that be your first response for crying out loud? Like wow, I may have lung cancer, but damn it, my skin rocks.

[Kasey]

Checkout girl in the local market.........who heard through the grapevine that I'd not been well. BTW.......this was in the past 2 months!!!!! Began by ASSUMING I had breast cancer. So I said in a voice loud enough for those around me to hear....well, okay...........even those far away, that I had LUNG cancer. To that she sucked in her breath and said........I can't believe you're still alive!!!!!!!!! Sorry to disappoint everyone

Kasey

PS: Hey Debi, did we know each other in another life? A dog named Freddie and a cat named Casey. Sounds like Fred and Kasey to me !

[beatlemike]

Right before my surgery my neihbor lady told me not to let them cut me open because it will spread all over and I wont live long at all.

[Geri]

One month after my first chemo we hired a cleaning lady. Good old VT soul (younger than me but seemed ancient) who turned out to be an absolute asset.

However one of the first things she told me was that I was the EIGHTH person she had worked for who had cancer and only ONE was still alive

My comeback was that hopefully before long she'd know TWO

I had to leave the room before she saw me laughing. This has become my party piece when I'm asked how long it's been, I love to see the shock then hear the laughter when it sinks in.

Geri

[Connie B]

I have so many stories!!!! One that comes to mind is, One day I was at the Hospital that I have our lung caner support group at. I was in the lunch room eating lunch before the meeting started.

Sitting there reading a flyer, wearing a shirt that in the lift had front corner of the shirt above my left breast it says, "Lung Cancer Survivor". Being very proud of my shirt, thee elderly ladies were sitting next to me at a table and one turns to me and says, " Oh you were a smoke?" Not thinking because I had no clue what the heck she was talking about, I said, "Pardon me?" She said, "Your lung cancer, you were or are a smoker?" I just wanted to scream, but instead I was hoenst and said "I USE to some, but thousands of people get lung cancer from NOT smoking." And with that she said, "Oh I find that hard to believe." I picked up by lunch and moved, because I knew I was talking upon dead ears.

I'll share more later.

I gotta share one more. One of my dear friends who died from lung cancer was talking to a friend of hers. Mary, (my friend), said something to her friend regarding her(Mary having lung cancer. Mary's friend said back to Mary, " Oh Mary I'm so sorry to hear you have lung cancer, but just think it could be worse, it could be your husband or your son or daughter that has lung cancer." On that one when Mary told me that, the only thing I could do was sing to Mary, "If they Only had a Brain......"(from the Wizard of Oz)....teehee!

I can't wait to hear some of the other stories. This should be an interesting thread. Good One Deb!

I

[nyka69]

Hope you don't mind a caregiver sharing a story...

A woman that works in my office, that I only know well enough to say hello to, heard through the grapevine that my husband has lung cancer.

She asked "Do you think its better that your husband is going to die slowly, or would it be better if he got, like, hit by bus?"

[ursol]

My least favorite sister in law recently said "you know you have beaten the statistics, your still alive after a year".

I believe I have disappointed her. Ha!

Lilly

[Judy-OK]

I have a neighbor that is a dear dear lady and a fairly good friend but just does not get it if you know what I mean. She keeps remarking about how amazing I am and that I made the treatments I "breezed" through the chemo and radiation like it was a piece of cake. I just smile and tell her was by far not the easiest of things I have done in my life. ROFLMAO

[Andrea]

Gosh I have so many :)

Like Beatlemike also got told that my mom should not have surgery b/c opening her up would make it spread. I got told this by my hair colorist's assistant. I explained to him that it was a myth

The most annoying comment was someone telling my mom that "maybe it would be easier for you and Andrea if she were not an only child and you were not so close". People just say the dumbest things!

[Tom K]

A few months after I finished treatment, I was standing in the lobby of the building I work in and a lady who worked in another building and whom I have worked with occasionally over the years, walked up to me and said, “I heard you died”. I responded by saying, “some people wait their whole life for a straight line like that”. She picked up on my meaning and said she was “glad the rumor was greatly exaggerated”.

[Wendy]

I was talking to an Ear, Nose and Throat doctor that had repaired my vocal cord paralysis. We were discussing the trial I was on with Iressa and he said

"Wendy if your lung cancer comes back you're TOAST". GULP!!

I still want to go back to his office 2 years later and 1.5 years after I had mets to my spine and say -

WRONG!

Wendy

[Kaffie]

Besides the usual are you a smoker comment, I think one of the dumbest comments came from my own surgeon.

After three months of tests and indecision's about surgery I was in his office one day and he said ...Well, the board is on the fence about whether they think it's cancer or not and we can't biopsy it, so we can either do surgery now or wait and watch for another three months, it has to come out anyway...WHAT??? It has to come out anyway? Why in He-- would I want to give it another three months to grow if it has to come out anyway?

The reason I let him do the surgery instead of running was because he is one of the top surgeons in the NW, plus he does lung transplants so I knew he is good at what he does, just not too smart with the bedside manner.

Kathy

[Connie B]

I asked my Onc Doc about 4 months after I compeletd all my treatments, "How long will I have to come and see you?" He Replied: "The rest of your life."

Well, 6 years down the road I went in for my yearly checkup with him, and I said to him, "Good Morning here I am again, and I smiled, I then said, we've been together for a little over 6 years, I'll bet you didn't think that would happen?" And of course he said, "Well, with your dx.s I will say I didn't think you'd make 2 years." I said to him, "So when I asked you HOW LONG YOU & I Would be togehter, you thought it might be for a pretty short time?" He schrugged his shoulders and said, "What can I do for you today?" That was the LAST time I saw him.

Moral of the story is: When THEY SAY you'll have to see them the REST OF YOUR LIFE, they aren't thinking we have much of a life expectancy left! HA HA HA FOOLED HIM!

[mitzu]

My aunt thinks she's a witch-doctor, so she told my dad not to eat any meat whatsoever, because meat feeds the cancer.

The "don't do surgery because it spreads" is very old and overused. It's the one I hate the most!

[raneyf]

My son's preschool teacher asked me if "they were giving me good percentages and stuff." I'm like, for survival, no not really. People aren't mean-spirited for the most part, just horribly uninformed on how serious this is. I think because I look and act pretty normal, it's misleading too, but that's o.k., because I'm trying to fake the cancer out too.

[tiredmom959]

An friend/neighbor of mine died in her 40s of a brain tumor. I still keep in touch, just a couple times a year, with her parents who are elderly.

The woman called me shortly after my mom's diagnosis, and I told her about it. This is a woman who is pretty well educated, normally very prim and proper ... but she's called me twice since then (in the past year) and asked me both times "is your mom still living". Now I know it may be awkward to ask "how is your mom" if your not sure something didn't happen, but I'd prefer her risking that that the other question!!!

[Snowflake]

"You look great, considering...."

Uh, considering I've gained 50 pounds, been gifted with bad skin and find it extremely hard to breathe in the humidity? Yeah....

[Kasey]

Hey Becky....I've gained 25 pounds, my skin has dried out like an alligator AND my hair is so brittle that it picks my head when I put it on the pillow and it just breaks off!!!! So I'm good too ~ considering..........

Kasey

[Snowflake]

LOL - my hair isn't brittle, but every time I get out of the shower, I leave a hamster in the drain. I wonder how much longer THAT can go on before I have a chrome dome like my daddy? I'm tellin' ya, it falls out and my head will be a white board for temporary tattoos!

...and Kasey, you do look great, considering...

[Kasey]

My avatar is 25 pounds AGO and the hair is a WIG. But thanks !!!! I think the slim, good hair ship has sailed to points unknown!!!!

Kasey

[Connie B]

Talk about ALLIGATOR SKIN!!!! I thought that Animal Planet show was going to call me up and ask me to be apart of one of there alligator documentries.

I have to laugh though when I tell people I am a 12 year lung cancer survivor, so many of them just look at me like There looks sometimes are priceless. I LOVE IT! I know they are thinking "Holy crap, you should have been dead a long time ago."

[Hebbie]

I've got one for you -- from my surgeon no less....

At my 3 week follow up from my lobectomy, the surgeon walked into the room and said "Well, 5 of your 12 mediastynal nodes were positive for cancer....that takes you from Stage I to Stage IIIA -and then he followed up with "there is no proof that chemo/radiation at this point will increase your survival either way" - but it doesn't matter because "I got it all" (I wonder how many smug surgeons utter that phrase in their lifetime) ... (This was the same surgeon that seemed irritated that I returned to him almost 2 years later with recurrent nodules in both lungs. He basically told me at that point that I didn't need to follow up with him anymore and to see only my oncologist -- he basically made me feel like I had failed him and he was dismissing me....)

Another one that I hear frequently is similar to a few post above --

"OH, I NEVER WOULD HAVE GUESSED HOW SICK YOU ARE -- YOU HAVE SUCH BEAUTIFUL SKIN AND YOUR EYES ARE SO BRIGHT!!".

I've learned to follow up with "Well, lung cancer is on the INSIDE".

[Andrea]

I just thought of another one. I was told by a co-worker that my mom should go to different doctors until one said it is not cancer. She was serious. She did not believe in medicine based on her religion. Unfortunately she has since passed from colon cancer b/c she ignored symptoms

[Shelley (MLC)]

One of our good friends (and a Doctor) looked at moms PET scan for me. His advice...."have your mom apply for a bunch of new credit cards and max them all out"...basically saying that she wouldn't be around to have to worry about paying them off! Nice friend! Shelley

[luvmydog2]

His advice...."have your mom apply for a bunch of new credit cards and max them all out"...basically saying that she wouldn't be around to have to worry about paying them off!

I believe I would have looked at him and ask if it would be OK to send him $10 per month on his bill.