A guy I know was diagnosed with cancer just before Christmas. I bumped into his wife tonight and asked her how he was getting on.

“Last radiotherapy session today. Should have shrunk the tumour on his liver so they can operate. Hopefully shrunk the one in his bowel so they can attack it with chemo.”

And then she said “He’s feeling a bit sorry for himself”

Hope the guy never has manflu!

sounds like my mum after dad finished 8 wks of chemo 🙄

I’m not sure I’m understanding your point cashdash, are you saying she shouldn’t say that? she’s just making conversation no?

She may well be hinting that he’d like some company/visitors

Just sounds to me like she has an excellently dry sense of humour.

Gallows Humour

Context is everything. Did she say it as gallows humour or as an unsympathetic individual?

On a wider point though, it is interesting how society reacts to people’s illnesses differently depending on whether they are male or female.

And then she said “He’s feeling a bit sorry for himself”

At which point you are supposed to leap in and say he has every right to feel that and show a bit of empathy.

Instead of dashing off to type furiously to a bunch of strangers.

Sounds like you missed the humour.

When my Father had (and eventually died of) cancer, my Mother adopted a similar attitude to your OP.

After all the angst and sympathy from family and friends, it kinda wore thin. My Mother being of the stoic variety adopted sarcasm and humour to cope. It worked, my Father understood, we understood, everyone around us did too. The attitude didn’t wear well with a few of his old work colleagues though, but they kinda came round.

In the main its a coping mechanism, often the comment was given to garner a response that either made light of the situation, or add humour, or provoke a more inquisitive one.

I think I would hate for my partner to be telling people that I was crushed/floundering/terrified of death/in unbearable pain etc. (I’m fine, so it’s hard to know, FAD)

I’d much rather she said I was “feeling a bit sorry for myself”. 🙂

“He’s feeling a bit sorry for himself”

If this was VeryBritishProblems there’d be a translation;

“He feels like shit, this has been the worst experience of his entire life, he’s hanging on to his health both mental and physical by the skin of his teeth and desperate that he doesn’t die so he can get to see his kids grow up. Every time he thinks about the future he wants to cry and I sit and hold him at night to get him through the dark times”

But we’re British so you have to do the translation in your head and respond as if that’s what she’d actually said.

very well put wasx2