I simply ignore them.  As for the older lady - I've heard that if you don't die
of old age or something else, eventually everyone will end up with cancer.
That might be what she's thinking.  I figure if I die from cancer when I'm in
my late 80's or 90's....I don't have anything to complain about ;-)  I'm
certainly not going to stop and worry about it now (at age 45) or start picking
out a coffin!  

Sue - DivaofDVC   aka WDW1972
DVC '97   OKW, Beach Club, Vero Beach, & Hilton Head

[snip]

Richard, I've faced this problem a few times with friends of
my wife.  If they're also friends of mine I make it a point
to let them know that I'm trying to maintain a positive
mental outlook around the house and would appreciate their
help.  If they're mainly friends of Gloria's I stay out of
it but let Gloria know her friends are wrong.

Keep reminding yourself that statistics and group averages
only apply to the whole group and tell you very little (if
anything) about individual cases.  Hope this helps a little.
- Tony

P.S. If the folks making the comment are mainly friends of
mine I don't hesitate to ask them to please refrain in the
future.

It seemed to me that as I approached 50, death came into my life.  Prior to
my wife's illness I had hardly encountered serious illness among my
acquaintances.  Then a year after my wife died, my best friend died (bowel
cancer), and my wife's best friend's mother in law died (breast cancer), and
it seems that everyone was telling me about their friends and relatives who
had or had died of cancer.

Did I want to know?  Of course not, but I'm afraid it comes with the turf.
Just the same as everyone wanted to tell my Russian wife whenever there was
a documentary about Russia on the television.  "Yes" she said,  "I've been
there, I've seen it."

I'm sorry I can't be more helpful, but I think it is another of the things
you have to learn to cope with.  Think of it as part of growing up.

As to your 80 year old, I would say  that not only is she right but I would
go one step further and say you don't even need the cancer cells.  I doubt
if there is an 80-year-old on the planet who has not got some sort of cancer
going on, slowly and quietly in the background, that they never know of.
For all of us it is not a matter of "if" we will die but "when", and the
same applies to cancer, the only way we escape it is to die of something
else first.

So there is no need for her words to frighten Janet unless she thought she
was immortal, and I am sure she did not mean to frighten her.

We use words like "survive", "cure", "save" loosely, as if once cured of
cancer we can avoid it happening again, as if a life once saved will never
be lost.  Unlike say, measles, cancer can come to all of us at any time,
whether we have had it before or not.  And those of us who have had it once,
quite apart from possible metastasis, have demonstrated a probable
propensity for producing cancers and so are at higher risk of getting it
again just for that reason.

Tim Jackson

<< How do you deal with people who insist on telling you things you neither
want, nor need, to hear, about people who have died of cancer?
particularly when you  obviously cannot identify who is going to do it
in advance, and therefore warn them off.>>

Hmm, that's a tough one and my response is emotionally not always the best.  i
don't have the nerve to tell them that is not what i want to be hearing---at
least most of them.  Generally, I listen politely and internally discredit
them.  There is so much they don't know.  Generally, the people who have said
these things are not those with the highest SQ or EQ (social quotient or
emotional quotient) and have their own emotional baggage--at least the ones
that I have encountered.  
I can't recall the exact figures--but if I remember correctly about 200,000
are dx'd with breast cancer each year (in the U.S., I think--but could be wrong
about that) and about 46,000 to 50,000 die from breast cancer each year.
However, the %age of those who are not surviving is decreasing, meaning that
those more recently dx'd generally have an improved chance for longer term
remission.
My husband used to do cancer research.  His feelings are that once someone has
enough cancer cells in their body for cancer to be dx'd then there are always
or at least almost always some remaining cancer cells or the propensity for
your body to creat more since the mutation is there.  From what I gather those
who have the best chance for cure are those whose cancer was discovered in its
earliest stages.
However, that does not mean a bleak or even negative outlook for others.
Researchers are working on how to extend remission for different cancers.  
Hopefully that will include breast cancer.
I wish I had some constructive answers  but each of us is different along those
lines.  What has helped me is being proactive--which includes finding out as
much as I can about b.c.  Other things that have helped have been me is being
involved in related, positive activities--i.e. doing the Susan G. Komen 3-day
breast cancer walk as well as participating in the American Cancer Society's
'Relay for Life."

 I had the opposite experience, a rather amazing thing.

 I'd been in the surgical waiting room; my wife was undergoing a
lumpectomy.  The surgeon came in, and said it looked malignant.  

 As he left, another "sitter" piped up.  He'd heard what I'd been told,
and said "What you need now is some case histories.  My mother had breast
cancer 14 years ago, and is healthy as a racehorse!"

 What an upper!  JUST what I needed to hear!  

 I stop them immediatly, and tell them that I want to hear only GOOD
news.  They usually walk away looking shocked.