Bad Manners or Good Etiquette?

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Well, at least it’s not c-a-n-c-e-r! 

 

So many times I hear this pronouncement when someone shares the travails in their life or that of a person close to them.  What does this self-assuring phrase mean to the utterer? What does it mean to the hearer?

It harkens me back to the victorian age when C-A-N-C-E-R was hissed in hushed tones, as if saying it in polite conversation was unseemly, bad-form, or worse – made the disease communicable.

To the one sighing in relief, “well…at least it’s not cancer”, it is comforting as if this means the sufferer in question has somehow dodged a terminal bullet.

To the recipient of this sighed utterance, it can mean further isolation – especially if you yourself has C-A-N-C-E-R. Those of us with C-A-N-C-E-R do not have a red letter on our chests (or a pink, or a purple…but I digress).

It may mean that in the minds of the speaker anything is still better than c-a-n-c-e-r … that O-T-H-E-R disease. It may mean that C-A-N-C-E-R is still the feared death-sentence that it has historically been. It may mean that subconsciously people do not b-e-l-i-e-v-e the propaganda perpetuated by the C-A-N-C-E-R   I-N-D-U-S-T-R-Y. They may not believe the rhetoric that “awareness” is somehow a cure. They would accept anything but c-a-n-c-e-r.

I don’t buy into the billboards, TV commercials, print ads, direct-mail advertising, pop-up ads, runs, walks, retail-awareness. I do, however, understand the fear and the loneliness C-A-N-C-E-R can engender in a person. I would not wish C-A-N-C-E-R on my worst nemesis. Yet, I will not be hushed when I say C-A-N-C-E-R when speaking about myself, because it is part of life and reality.

What do I say in return when I am privy to the sighed utterance, well at least it’s not….     ?

Nothing.

I nod.

It would be unseemly and bad-form to do otherwise. One social faux-pas in a conversation is quite enough.