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Words of wisdom? Probably not other than to let it go. My mother died a couple years ago. People asked what she died of and rather than list all the stuff she had wrong with her I just said "Too many birthdays" (she was 89).
You know what the peritoneal sac is as do I. How many others would? For most people who die of cancer that's all that's said "Cancer" (unless it's lung cancer, then it's always mentioned).
The deceased has a right to privacy just as much as the living. Some forms of death have a stigma attached to them. If telling a little white lie about a friend or family members death is a big issue with you just tell anyone that asks to consult with the deceased's Doctor. The Doctor will know how to properly handle the subject.
GL2
I would think pneumonia would have less stigma than cirrhosis (which is usually due to alcoholism or hepatitis).
Sorry, op. I have no idea why someone would lie or change the 'facts' of the cause of death. None of those causes of death you mentioned seem particularly full of stigma.
I think people ARE answering you. The concensus of opinion seems to be "why does it matter?".
Why is your stepsister walking for cervical cancer rather than peritoneal cancer? Maybe because there's no walk for that. Maybe because cervical cancer is more widely known. Maybe she needs to attach herself to a cause and do a good work to feel better. Maybe it isn't a lie at all - perhaps she is truly confused about the disease process that took her mother's life. Actually, peritoneal cancer usually mimics ovarian cancer...and ovarian and cervical cancer are way two different cancers in two separate structures within the body. Could it possibly be that there's a little anatomical confusion for her? I have been in the medical community - I happen to know the difference by virtue of my former employment - but you'd be surprised at the number of people who don't know the ovaries and the cervix are not the same thing. Yes, her mother's cancer was actually in the abdomen - but you know, some people just take the first thing they hear and run with it. Since it was only 2 months from diagnosis until her mother's passing she may just be seriously confused.
Your stepsister is walking for a good cause and is coping in her own way - I wouldn't dissect her motives very much, just let it be. I would very gently ask if there's something else in the way between you two that this has become a point of contention in your mind. I do understand that you want things to be "right" - and I also understand you can only state the facts as you know them to be and let it rest after that. It's truly not worth dwelling on or confronting.
Again, not trying to dissect her motives, just want to understand her. Everyone grieves in their own way. It didn't occur to me until a friend pointed out that she might never have understood what "Peritoneal" meant - I googled it immediately at the time.
Dad, Stepmom and the rest of the family were spouting facts and statistics that were very positive, based on cervical cancer survivor rates. I prepared my children for their favorite grandma's death, in the meanwhile. We were the only ones not taken by complete surprise. It was so hard being alone in having the correct information during her illness and for the time I spent taking care of them all after she passed. I knew telling them would serve no purpose, and I understood why it would serve no purpose - you don't want to take away someone's hope while they're fighting a losing battle, but you also don't want to 'rub salt in the wound' afterward and point out that you knew she had no chance of survival all along. Add that burden to managing the grief and taking care of so many who loved her (though I did not, she was horrid to me until my children were born, then she turned into the world's best grandma - not sarcastic- and stepmom, but I couldn't let go of the things she had done then. I have now - so no need to attack me for that too) and all the details and things that were not done, because she and Dad did not expect her death. With my father's poor health, everyone assumed Dad would "go first" and everything from the Wills, the trusts, the accounts, the paperwork... everything was set up that way.
Perhaps claiming Cervical cancer helps her assuage her own private guilt for pushing her mother into taking chemo - after the exploratory surgery, the doctors told her there was nothing more they could do. It was her daughter that set up the chemo at a different clinic. Of course, she has nothing to feel guilty about, but I can see that happening.
I went to real life folks (who know the three people I mentioned). They all said the same thing basically.
1) If your mother died of Peritoneal cancer, but you never bothered to find out that Peritoneal cancer has NOTHING to do with the cervix or female reproductive organs, even though it's often misdiagnosed as Cervical cancer, you might just be speaking from ignorance. That's what I said...she doesn't know the difference in anatomical structuring.
2) Attention. If you're relating a story about what an alcoholic your friend "Paul" is, and what a bad a$$ he was, a better ending to that story is that he died from cirrhosis at 43 vs pneumonia. That's what I said - she needs attention and to feel better about some cause, helping her to accept.
3) When retelling the story of why it's so important to take care of yourself physically and eat right, telling everyone you have to be MORE careful than others because your brother died so young (something which you can prevent) has more impact than telling them it was cancer.
4) If the Walk a thon is specifically for children/families affected by CERVICAL cancer, you might not get the attention you crave for your mother's death if she died from something else. )#2) That's what I said - there is no walk for peritoneal. You can't walk by yourself - well, I guess she could, but for what purpose?
Pretty much all the reasons were centered around their need for attention. I thought it was some strange way of denying what happened. But I guess I'll listen to people who heard my question, not supposed I was asking another, ala Sam I Am "Why does it Matter?"
I have answered that. It matters because I wanted to better understand THEIR grief process. I guess there are only a few others here who share that desire to help others.
SSKKC, I don't think anyone is attacking you. That most certainly was not my motive - I was trying to put forth reasons why she might have found a different story. No one is trying to blow you off, everyone is trying to help from our limited knowledge of the situation. People tell whatever story comforts them the most a lot of the time.
I think it's important to realize that you've talked with people in real life who have given you the answers you seek. It is very hard for those of us on the blue screen to get our point across adequately...you can't see our faces, you don't know our level of concern. I ALWAYS think real life scenarios are better than forums, but we do what we can.
I am sorry you mistook an honest, heartfelt, well thought out reply as an attack. It was not intended that way at all. My comment of "why does it matter?" means people will deal with people how they do - and we really cannot question their motives for such. It just is.
I would think pneumonia would have less stigma than cirrhosis (which is usually due to alcoholism or hepatitis).
Sorry, op. I have no idea why someone would lie or change the 'facts' of the cause of death. None of those causes of death you mentioned seem particularly full of stigma.
Yes, that's why it sticks with me. It seems odd.
"Words of wisdom? Probably not other than to let it go. My mother died a couple years ago. People asked what she died of and rather than list all the stuff she had wrong with her I just said "Too many birthdays" (she was 89)."
I'm not losing sleep over it, but as I had just seen it, and had experienced listening to people lie about it in the past, I was just looking for some insight.
I know my father lives in denial about a lot - for instance, I called the other day and asked him how Grandma was doing (which I ask everytime I call). He said she was achy, but the doctor's didn't know why. I laughed, thinking he was kidding and said something like, "Did they miss the part where she's 92 years old and has arthritis and diabetes?" He was quiet for a minute, then sighed and said, "Yeah, duh". We then spent 20 minutes arguing about whether or not he should take gout medication for his foot pain (he was on crutches, it had gotten so bad). In the end, I talked him into it and he took the pills while we were on the phone. Got a text the next morning that the pills were working and he was feeling better.
Knowing "why" can sometimes lead you to help others. Having all the information helps. My kids weren't devastated as much as they would've been by their favorite Grandma's passing had they really expected to spend the summer with her again, which I had explained was unlikely. That if she was still alive, that would be a gift, but that her illness was too severe and that the Peritoneal sack is not something that can heal (her surgeon's description was that it was lace, and he opened her up and closed her immediately)
SSKKC, I don't think anyone is attacking you. That most certainly was not my motive - I was trying to put forth reasons why she might have found a different story. No one is trying to blow you off, everyone is trying to help from our limited knowledge of the situation. People tell whatever story comforts them the most a lot of the time.
I think it's important to realize that you've talked with people in real life who have given you the answers you seek. It is very hard for those of us on the blue screen to get our point across adequately...you can't see our faces, you don't know our level of concern. I ALWAYS think real life scenarios are better than forums, but we do what we can.
I am sorry you mistook an honest, heartfelt, well thought out reply as an attack. It was not intended that way at all. My comment of "why does it matter?" means people will deal with people how they do - and we really cannot question their motives for such. It just is.
I did not take YOUR reply as an attack, though I did feel that most other posters, including the one who repped me, were judging rather than answering my question. YOUR reply was thoughtful, and appreciated as such. When I asked for the thread to be closed, you had not responded. When you did not, I decided to respond to this thread, though initially, I just wanted to reply to the other posters "in kind". Why bother having a forum board if the answer to everything is to dismiss the question? I felt that, as you said, they wanted to ask "Why does it matter?" rather than respond to the OP.
I have no idea why people would lie about the examples you gave. I do know people who have lied about causes of death, but the reasons were more obvious. When I was a kid, I remember that my mother's cousin's husband was found dead of a heart attack. They were married only a couple of years and had an infant son. The story was that he went outside to get firewood for the fireplace and never came back. She went outside to look for him and found him dead by the woodpile. Only when I was an adult did I find out that the real story was that when she went outside to look for him, she found him hanging in the garage. He had committed suicide, and they didn't want that known at the time. It was even worse because she had no idea WHY. There was no note, nothing. I do remember she was going to the cemetery all day every day for a year and leaving the baby with relatives until some of them got together and encouraged her to get help. I can see that she was too distraught to deal with the reality so they covered up.
Another friend told me a few different vague reasons about how her mother died in her mid-fifties. I did not know this friend when her mother was alive. First she said her mother was in the hospital and the doctors gave her the wrong medicine (but never said why her mother was in the hospital in the first place). Then she said her mother had been unconscious and woke up to see her (adult) children around her all dressed up and asked why they were dressed up and they told her because it was Thanksgiving. Her mother died later that day, and it was because she was upset over realizing how long she had been unconscious because here it was Thanksgiving already and she had gone to the hospital a couple of weeks before.
Obviously, this made no sense at all, but eventually I came to realize that my friend's mother was an alcoholic and she had probably died of cirrhosis. That was the part that my friend wasn't telling. It's not unusual for children of alcoholics, even adults, to be in denial or unable to speak of their parent's alcoholism.
In my opinion, people usually handle grief in the same way they handle everything else they do in life. It's just magnified during the stress of losing someone close. So to understand why your relatives "color" or "lie" or have "misunderstood" the actual cause of death you only need to look at the way they live their life to figure that out. There is also the issue of what the doctors tell the family the cause of death is as opposed of what is actually written on the death certificate...they often don't match. People sometimes also latch on to the simplest explanation because they don't like repeating a detailed story over and over again when asked which could easily happen when someone dies of something unusual. You tell the simplified story often enough it becomes true in their minds.
Grief also brings out old tensions between siblings. Are you absolutely sure your nitpicking isn't really about old issues rather than a need to understand why your step-sister is doing what she's doing in response to her mother's death?
In my opinion, people usually handle grief in the same way they handle everything else they do in life. It's just magnified during the stress of losing someone close. So to understand why your relatives "color" or "lie" or have "misunderstood" the actual cause of death you only need to look at the way they live their life to figure that out. There is also the issue of what the doctors tell the family the cause of death is as opposed of what is actually written on the death certificate...they often don't match. People sometimes also latch on to the simplest explanation because they don't like repeating a detailed story over and over again when asked which could easily happen when someone dies of something unusual. You tell the simplified story often enough it becomes true in their minds.
Grief also brings out old tensions between siblings. Are you absolutely sure your nitpicking isn't really about old issues rather than a need to understand why your step-sister is doing what she's doing in response to her mother's death?
I'm not nitpicking, truly. It's not about her specifically. I just don't understand her motivation, or Dad's or my friends. I haven't thought much about it, until yesterday afternoon, when I realized a 3rd person I care about was doing this. I really just wanted to understand. I understand why she's doing the "walk a thons"... she does something like it every few months, cancer fundraisers centering on exercise, that is. Her mother and she were planning on doing one when she got ill. No big mystery there. I support her in it. She lost her father when she was young, and her mother's death was very unexpected. It's been very rough on her - she doesn't have a husband or kids either to lean on.
As to your first paragraph, thanks. It rings true.
Okay, I think the public confuses "cause of death" with "contributing factors."
Have you ever looked at mortality stats from hospitals? I have worked with those stats so have knowledge in this area.
The official reasons for someone's death may not be the same as what made them sick.
For example, a person with AIDS is admitted to the hospital but dies due to PNEUMONIA. The cause of death would be - PNEUMONIA but the underlying disease would be AIDS.
So it would be true and factual to say that person died of PNEUMONIA.
My grandmother suffered with an extremely rare type of vaginal cancer that spread to her cervix, uterus and ovaries. However, her death certificate says she died of an arterial rupture, wh/ was true. But it also states that she had been diagnosed with vaginal cancer 12 years earlier, wh/ spread to other organs. (Vaginal cancer is almost never detected until it has spread - it is like tiny bumps in many cases, as was my grandmother's). She endured surgeries and treatment for over 12 years b/f her death. Everyone knew she had a hysterectomy so they could understand that she had uterine cancer, so for 12 years, everyone referred to my grandma as having uterine cancer and when she died, they said she died of uterine and ovarian cancer. The vaginal cancer is NOT what killed her; its spread is what killed her, so they were technically correct . . . but by OP's assumption, they were "lying" by not stating what was on the death certificate: arterial rupture.
Or maybe OP would think they were "lying" by not stating the onstart of her cancer, which was vaginal cancer, not uterine/ovarian cancer. ????
Before folks start judging others about someone's "cause of death," let's take a deep breath and realize that what actually kills us - some organ not functioning (for ex., renal failure) may not be the underlying cause of that person's illnness but it is not LYING when someone says . . . "he died of renal failure."
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