What I'm not happy about is how she's wording her public responses about benign tumors.
"it's benign, so I don't have to worry about it"
Benign means non-cancerous and usually when you refer to a situation as benign, it means unharmful. But a benign tumor isn't always unharmful. Any odd growth of cells can cause harm, especially if they crop up in a dangerous location.
I consider myself very lucky that my tumor was caught while still relatively small and that it was in a relatively non-dangerous location and my only problems were ice-pick-jab headaches and not being able to move my leg for a few weeks. Others aren't so lucky and lose their eyesight, the ability to be in crowds due to overstimulation or have complete paralysis. Some people even die from benign brain tumors. And then, of course, there are the benign tumors that develop in other parts of the body and the issues they can cause.
Benign tumors are definitely something to worry about.
"please don't worry about my "brain tumor", it's a non-cancerous growth. I
know some folks can have problems with this kind of thing, but I want
to assure everyone I'm OK"
"Some folks can have problems." To this meningioma-survivor, that sounds a heck of a lot like "sorry you were offended" instead of "sorry I offended you." Maybe I'm being sensitive, but she's a very vocal person. I'm sure she's had media trainings in the past and I'm sure she has a PR rep who told her to make that second statement on her Facebook page. Couldn't she - or one of her people - have realized that with some simple rewording, she could have not offended all of those affected by benign tumors?
"please don't worry about my brain tumor. While benign (non-cancerous) tumors can cause serious problems, I want to assure everyone I'm OK"
my words
See? How hard is that? And really, getting rid of the belittling quotes around brain tumor would've gone a long way without rewording the second sentence.
She learned of her tumor right around the time I learned of mine and I'm sure she did exactly what I did - hit the internet. And in doing so, found all the scary stories and worst-case scenarios. But then she calmed down and realized that hers didn't need surgery and wasn't causing any immediate problems so she got on with her life. Maybe was even able to put it out of her mind. She already talks about breast cancer in just about every interview, I can totally understand why she wouldn't want to add another medical condition to the list. And seems like even mentioning it now was a total slip. Also fine. If she doesn't want to be a meningioma advocate, she doesn't need to be. She's more than her medical conditions. I also totally understand wanting to downplay the seriousness of it - people freak out when you put the words brain and tumor together. And having a benign tumor is definitely worlds better than a cancerous one. Worlds.
But she is in the public eye and thus what she says - and how she says it - means more than it does for the average person.
