Starting to avoid people because of the silly things they say!!

I've just had CT scans this week, also awaiting results. Primary did not shrink last time, it had before, but I was assured (emphatically) all that matters is it did not increase in size.
I found my lump 3 weeks after husband's funeral. Did I take my eye off the ball when I spent all that time caring for him? Maybe a little I was quite broken at the end of it, but not a lot, and last mammo 3 yrs before was clear. I have not beaten myself up about that. Maybe if found 3 months sooner I'd have been a bad stage 3. My 3 bone mets are "small volume", so a new kind of good luck. But history can not be changed, so I don't dwell on it.
Even though I am told my "disease is stable", results appts are scary. Good luck.

Re work - WFH all year and spare bedroom now a dedicated office, but on reduced hours most of the year. I've had enough of all that keeping a sense of self worth, structuring one's day, etc. I want to sleep as long as I need each morning and use my quality daily hours for me and not have them totally consumed by work. So it's the right time to consider retirement for me.

Something about sizing. I was given a real scare at one point when a scan result seemed to show the tumour gaining 9mm in 9 weeks. Turned out that the person measuring just approached from a different angle and since tumours are not necessarily round-shaped but can have three different dimensions, she looked at a different side than the previous scan. In the end, once they grabbed the thing and pathology was able to see directly, it was actually about 25% smaller than the last scan showed.

As for, "you'll feel better...." yep, people do say stupid things! 

I'm the same. I'm ignoring most people. I was diagnosed in the school summer holidays. Fake people about and I feel most are nosey and not genuine as when I was diagnosed over the summer holidays, I was on my own. Now the school's back for my son, now acting concerned as my mum is doing the school run.

One mum even cried and I was like that should be me crying what you crying for.. Now I'm gossip for people and I've only told a few. One stranger even stopped my mum asking xyz as daily school run people and never even said a word to me yet has cheek wanting to know all my business from my mum.

Some people are just insensitive. Let's hope he's never ill and has to experience such crass remarks.   

I'm just on tablet medication for BC now having undergone 18mths of chemo, surgery, radiotherapy etc.   The side effects of the hormone tablets are very difficult to bear some days but when people keep saying how well I look, I just smile because there seems no point in going into the hard to live with side effects of all this treatment. I'm very grateful to the NHS so I just keep quiet.....and carry on.   Keep going everyone, we are brave people, remember that. 

No there often isn’t any point in saying anything. Like you say, the treatment goes on for so long afterwards but once the ‘highlights’ of chemo, surgery and radiotherapy are some people just think that’s it. Keep on keeping on!!

If I hear one more nurse saying, "you can do this!" I am going to flip. I was in hospital recently for a procedure. At some point that night things went bad, the volume of pain was such that even a double dose of oxy couldn't touch it. Then a nurse who had only met me minutes before had the audacity of telling me, "You can do this!" I told her in no uncertain terms that she was not helping, and privately thought to myself, "How do you know I can do this? You don't know me; you haven't got the first idea of who I am and what I am capable of; so why say empty, meaningless, annoying nothings that only serve to make things worse?!" The idiot topped it off with another oh-so-common saying I think we've all heard -- "you are strong!" Again -- how would she know?! I just wish people would stop saying base-less things that they really know nothing about.

I'm cross again now. A "friend" keeps asking how I am now and have I lost weight because she read somewhere that fat cells store oestrogen. I said I'd been told it was an age thing. Because I said my cancer was a common one, not needing chemo, she followed up with a phrase about me being lucky and how a friend of hers had died of breast cancer. This is surely not the best thing to say. A friend of mine has thyroid cancer - she hasn't commented on that one yet. He was isolated in a room for 3 days with radioactive iodine tablet which came in a lead box. I joke with him when he showed me his list of things to do and not to do from the Nuclear Medicine Dept that he's been nuked. Only people who've had to go through these horrible and weird things truly understand what guts it takes.

You don't owe a report about your situation. Next time she asks, you could respond with, "Fine, how are you?" As to, "Have you lost weight?" I might encouter with, "Why are you asking?" or, "Do I look like I lost weight?" That assumes you don't want a confrontation but just to get her off your back. 

Very sweet of her to tell you about her friend who died of breast cancer. A bit of a disrelated thought on this kind of thing: there are people walking alive today who, had they been diagnosed only 5 or 10 years earlier, wouldn't have been. New treatments and treatment paths are coming out all the time (I am aware of two just this year, one designed for advanced BC, one for early stage of a particular BC type) and our chances today are better than those who came before us. One of the cancer charities has the objective of turning all cancer into a chronic, rather than a life-limiting condition, by 2050. So, the fact that someone didn't make it in the past needs to be viewed against the treatment background of that period, and the understanding that the outcome might have been different today.

Back at work, but only just. A colleague leaned over, and in a low, conspiratorial voice, asked, "Are you feeling all better now?" I kept a straight face, and answered, "No, I am feeling just the same as before." 

It's so difficult isn't it.. it's like a never ending story..or getting on a treadmill without an end in sight ..The goal is to stay for as long as possible..  unless you have been on this treadmill you just can't understand what it is like.

People mean well..this is why I decided not to tell many people's just don't have the engery to talk about it and actually don't want to. I treat it like my asthma.. although I do sometimes have omg moments and scary times but that's my choice. 

Here's to us all kicking this C hard up the arse and keeping it a bay.