I agree that this is tough. I was writing about this idea the other day when I felt like I finally said something right in one of these moments; I was speaking to a woman whose husband just had a recurrence, so I did want to say something positive if I could (I ended up just sharing with her a bit of my personal experience that I thought might be helpful). Usually, I something like what @amandafl mentioned above about not sweating the small stuff or I just shrug off any compliments and change the subject, lol.