How do you deal with well-meaning, but hurtful, comments from friends?

@bronthebrill, cancer is NOT your fault. While not the same type of cancer, you might appreciate some of the tips and stories shared in this related discussion. @loribmt has a great analogy of fight and flight with snakes and alligators.

- CLL: How do you evaluate well-meaning tips from friends? https://connect.mayoclinic.org/discussion/cll-rick-simpson-oil/

Of course, we all know that eating well is good for our health and can reduce risk of heart disease, diabetes, cancer and other conditions. Did putting sugar in your tea cause cancer? No.

So how do you respond? That's tough. Have you told your friends about how their comments make you feel? This might open up a good conversation about how their well-meaning comments have a negative impact. Guilt and stress are also not good for anyone's health. But unconditional support from friends and social contact are very good for your health.

This is soooo relevant to me. Pre pandemic, we used to have high tea parties with historical dress themes. Some of the ladies would gasp when I had the sugary treats, “IDC breast cancer” I would laugh and remind them that I was an equestrian with almost no body fat when I was diagnosed, and sugar has never really been my weakness, or (always laughing) I would say “yeah but if the cancer gets me, don’t you think I will be glad that I ate this delightful little cake”.
Probably @colleenyoung has a better idea, but during high tea I always found a funny but true quip worked to ease the moment.
Oh and by the way, I really miss putting on an elaborate bustle gown and going to tea. It was my one dress up time. What will I do with all of these costumes. Hahaha

Good morning, @bronthebrill. The first words out of my mouth when I read your reply to friends gasping at your decision of what your eating would be: “Mind your own beeswax!” LOL. Having had cancer myself, I refrained from telling too many people for that reason. The buttinskies!

There isn’t any one thing that you did to get cancer. Just being exposed to life itself with our environment, pesticides, contaminants, pollutants, stress, gamma rays, you name it, can cause a single strand of DNA to go rogue and cancer takes off.

I found a great discussion in the forum that contains this blog post about sugar and cancer plus responses from other members with a variety of cancers.
~Should sugar be eliminated from diet in a cancer patient? https://connect.mayoclinic.org/discussion/should-sugar-be-eliminated-from-diet-in-a-cancer-patient/

Getting back to how you can respond to unsolicited advice from friends, because telling them it’s none of their beeswax isn’t the best way to handle that. ☺️
These worked for me:
~Saying, “Thanks for thinking of me” and then carry on.
~Ignore it
~”I appreciate your attempt to help, but I’d rather talk about something other than my health. “

There are also several members in the forum who also have been diagnosed with ILC-Invasive lobular carcinoma
I’m posting a link to search results for ILC. You can scroll through the discussions. Feel free to jump into any of the conversations. https://connect.mayoclinic.org/search/?search=ILC

How are you doing with your treatments?

I have experienced something similar! I live in a town that has great massage, New Age bookstores, and friends who try to tell me what to do about my cancer! I basically say something like:
Thanks for caring about me.
I'm doing everything my doctor suggests.
Please don't comment on what I eat--it makes me feel uncomfortable.
I had an osteopath--straddling two worlds of conventional and alternative medicine--tell me to say: "Unless you are a doctor with my chart in front of you, I don't need advice." That was a bit too strong for me, but usually friends will stop when asked (or they aren't real friends). Good luck with this!

I appreciate your response, and will try to be more gracious to them, and explain.

wow, thanks! This is very useful, and I will look at those links. I'm doing okay really, and considered stable with bone metastasis and bone marrow involvement. I will get a PET scan in April, and hopefully everything is still okay. I just battle with a sore body, and obviously fatigue.

Right, sugar has been around a long time. Of course, we have many varieties and artificial ones now as well. And, we also use it in different amounts. Like, I've seen people put 14 packets of sugar in a large coffee to then only drink a few sips and leave the rest for someone to throw out eventually. That seems to me excessive use of sugar or just wasteful. Then, I've heard people say that cancer feeds on sugar, but I have not seen anything in a medical explanation that states that or provides proof of it in a reasonable researched statement by any doctors treating cancer.

All I know is that sugar must have been available in large quantities in the older Southern communities and one time. Look at an old recipe book from the South and you will gasp at the amount of sugar they used in a dessert recipe.

Reading everybody's posts about the well-meaning, but hurtful, or at least annoying comments made by friends, neighbors, co-workers, nearly everyone on the "expert on all topics" spectrum, it seems, to someone with cancer, or another devastating condition/disease made me think back to comments made to me when I was pregnant. I had coworkers, and friends who commented on any morsel of anything I ate, activities I engaged in, it seemed nonstop. I recall eating a strip of crispy bacon with breakfast, and a coworker almost yelling at me that " THAT BACON COULD BE DEATH FOR YOU"!
I tended to take their comments with the proverbial grain of salt, trying to laugh off what they said, especially as I knew I was trying to live a healthy lifestyle, watch my diet, but dammit, I did go off the wagon once in a while and ate a piece of bacon.
I guess it was that last comment that made me respond: " Geez, here I go to a doctor and pay a lot of money for medical advice to help me live the best life I can for my baby and myself. With all this free medical advice from all the armchair "experts" around me, why would I need to pay someone for that advice?" Tongue in cheek, of course, but they seemed to get the point.

My best wishes for everyone here that's shared your stories of fighting cancer and my hopes for a good future for all of you. Mary