Some things you should not say to a person going through the cancer diagnosis and treatments even if you mean well. Some of these comments are just plain rude but others were said in a well-meaning way.
1. “God would not give you more than you can handle.” I cannot even begin to count the number of times I was told this. My standard reply was that God must have been looking at someone else if he thought I could handle this. I do believe in God but I don’t think that he gives people cancer. The way I was raised to believe was that God is not a cruel God and cancer is a cruel disease.
2. “I know how you feel” Well unless you have gone through cancer treatments yourself than you do not know how I felt. There is no possible way for anyone to know how someone feels when they hear they have cancer and that they could die. You just would not understand how it feels when you walk into chemotherapy to have poison that could damage your heart pumped into your body willingly.
3. “You were given cancer because you did not tithe enough”. Before you ask, yes I was told this by someone. This person tried telling me that had we tithed more that God would not have given me cancer. I personally wanted to slap this person aside the head when they said this to me. Go back and read number one and the same would go here. I am really not sure what she was thinking when she said that to me.
4. “You should be back to normal now that treatments are over.” Just because a person has finished their treatments does not mean that the side effects go away as soon as you leave your last treatment. The reality of cancer treatment is that for months or years after the last treatment you are still not over cancer. The side effects of the medications can last for a very long time and the stress from the cancer diagnosis can last even longer.