I can see how in a certain situation I might have thought or said that at some point. My meaning wouldn't have been that thyroid cancer is good, just that some others seem so very bad, especially those that seem to be impossible to treat. But I can totally see how to a person with thyroid cancer, a comment like this diminishes what they are feeling and dealing with.
I'm surprised that you get this from the medical community, though.
Perhaps it's that they see everything in degrees. I can imagine an orthopedist looking at an x-ray and saying, "If you have to break a bone, this is the one to break," meaning it's easier to heal then some other bones. But that doesn't mean it hurts any less.
Devil's advocate: If I was a patient just learning that I had cancer, I actually think it would be comforting to me to hear a doctor say it was a "good" kind. That wouldn't make me feel like I was off the hook by any means, but rather that it was something I could beat, or live with. I would imagine that any doctor who regularly diagnoses cancer patients gets used to the stark terror we feel upon hearing the word, and perhaps this is their attempt to mitigate that fear, not an attempt to minimize the seriousness of the disease.
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Valerie, I learned something today. So thank you.
I can see how in a certain situation I might have thought or said that at some point. My meaning wouldn't have been that thyroid cancer is good, just that some others seem so very bad, especially those that seem to be impossible to treat. But I can totally see how to a person with thyroid cancer, a comment like this diminishes what they are feeling and dealing with.
I'm surprised that you get this from the medical community, though.
Perhaps it's that they see everything in degrees. I can imagine an orthopedist looking at an x-ray and saying, "If you have to break a bone, this is the one to break," meaning it's easier to heal then some other bones. But that doesn't mean it hurts any less.
Devil's advocate: If I was a patient just learning that I had cancer, I actually think it would be comforting to me to hear a doctor say it was a "good" kind. That wouldn't make me feel like I was off the hook by any means, but rather that it was something I could beat, or live with. I would imagine that any doctor who regularly diagnoses cancer patients gets used to the stark terror we feel upon hearing the word, and perhaps this is their attempt to mitigate that fear, not an attempt to minimize the seriousness of the disease.
January 31, 2009 - 1:22pmThis Comment
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