When caring for someone with cancer, it can be difficult to find the right words.
Research by Macmillan Cancer Support has found that some of the terms often used to describe someone with cancer, such as 'brave', 'fighter', or 'hero', can be seen as inappropriate rather than supportive.
Factual statements, such as 'living with cancer', or 'receiving treatment for cancer', are often preferred. But everyone is different. And everyone will have their own preference for how they want to define their cancer.
Cancer is frequently a topic which we're scared to discuss. Purely because we don't want to say the wrong thing or make the situation seem worse.
But remember, a person with cancer, or any long-term illness, is still a normal human being. Be honest with them. If you don't know the right words to say, tell them that. It could be the prompt someone needs to be honest with you about how they are feeling.
For help and advice about caring for a loved one with cancer, Macmillan has a range of free guides to download here: be.macmillan.org.uk/be/s-75...
4 Replies
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Interesting post Simplyhealth_team. But I do think the most important thing is to say something! I've never met anyone with the diagnosis who fainted away when I said, "Oh sorry to hear you've had a cancer diagnosis. How are you feeling?" It gives the person the opportunity to say "I don't want to talk about it", but it also (and I've found this always to be the case), gives them an opportunity to get a few things off their chest. Don't worry about getting it wrong. If we stop to do that, we won't say it at all, and that adds to fear and silence. Once upon a time a cancer diagnosis might have been tantamount to saying you'd been handed a death sentence but not any more. Just say it. Don't be afraid of the word 'cancer'. When you say a controversial word once, it sounds shocking. Use it in every couple of sentences and it becomes easier to say, but also easier to deal with.
I do so agree that hiding behind words is not helpful. If you are a fighter or a warrior and you "lose the fight" that makes you a failed warrior.
My experience is with MSA a particularly nasty neurodegenerative disease. There is no hope of cure and it would have upset me to hear my husband described as an MSA Warrior. If he was fighting at all it was to live as good a life as he could and for us to enjoy it as much as we could for as long as we could and in that he suceeded magnificently. Some of us called MSA "the Beast" and our aim was to give it dammned good run for its money and grab as many good memories as we could from its claws.
And no, he did not pass away, pass over, join the angels, or any of these other things - he died, as we knew he would. Accepting death right from the first diagnosis of MSA and facing up to what it meant actually made things less difficult than whispering in corners and pretending it was not inevitable.
Please don't get me wrong, cancer is truly awful but increasingly there is hope which makes it easier than some of the other less well known diseases where there is no hope at all.
In 2013 when I diagnosed with breast cancer, I called the cancer my squatters and they had to be evicted as they didn't pay rent or do any housework, none of my friends told me to be serious about it, it was my cancer and that was how I dealt with it, forward wind to 2017 when I had to be registered as blind, family and 2 friends are fine with it and treat me as the Jenny they've known for years, the other 'friend,' mentioned the words white stick which has totally wrecked me emotionally, currently I have no mobility issues (apart from not being allowed to drive any more), but this person thinks the hospital should give me one, not for myself but to alert other people to my issues, which is something I don't want to do, the person concerned has never dealt with health issues in the way I have and our 'friendship' now is very strained, I wasn't invited to her youngest daughter's birthday lunch last year, I've always been included in these events, reason was that I work weekends which i do, but, and I'll never know, I feel it's due to my vision loss and someone would have to come and pick me up and drop me home afterwards, and although I'm registered blind I actually consider myself to be living with vision loss, so whatever the health issue the impact of saying the wrong thing, no matter how well meant is immeasurable
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Shhhh.... too quiet
Abuse to carer
