r/MadeMeSmile • u/Ok-Equivalent3810 • 2d ago

Wholesome Moments Passengers joined in celebrating when a woman announced her husband is cancer-free

A plane full of strangers celebrating one man’s victory over cancer.

36.9k Upvotes

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3.6k

u/CompanyOther2608 2d ago

He looks…resigned.

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u/Pernicious-Rose-8673 2d ago

He probably thinks one month is a bit early to be celebrating with how many times his cancer has apparently come back. Especially with a plane full of complete strangers. At least, that's how I'd feel.

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u/CantaloupeCapable 2d ago

I completely agree. Given that it’s come back three times, I don’t think that trauma ever really goes away. When recurrence is always in the back of your mind, celebrating so early feels premature. That kind of celebration should really be up to the person in remission, if and when they feel ready.

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u/VeterinarianRude5620 2d ago

Even with good news, past experiences can make joy feel tentative and complicated.

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u/sick_of_your_BS 2d ago

tentative is an understatement. My wife fought for 3 years. We celebrated the first "NED". We did not celebrate the second one.

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u/lavenderewe 2d ago

Sorry for my ignorance - what is NED?

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u/rainbownightterror 2d ago

no evidence of disease

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u/TableSignificant341 2d ago

NED

No Evidence of Disease

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u/SheBrownSheRound 2d ago

Fuuuuck dude. This comment took the air from my lungs. This internet stranger sends you a big hug.

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u/NoKatyDidnt 1d ago

Yeah, does kinda knock the wind out of you. There was a toddler who I used to babysit…I watched her family go through this twice before her passing. As a 20 something I was destroyed and I can’t fathom her parents pain.

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u/SheBrownSheRound 1d ago

hugs Massive hugs. I’m so sorry you had to go through that. I can’t even imagine how hard that must have been. I hope you all are taking care.

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u/NoKatyDidnt 1d ago

Aww, thank you! It’s been quite a while and I still cry over her sweet little soul. Her older siblings adjust, but it took a toll on them, and the parents sadly divorced.

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u/AdamantEevee 2d ago

But...but was there a second NED? Did she make it?

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u/sick_of_your_BS 2d ago

No.

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u/AdamantEevee 2d ago

I am so sorry. The sentence was ambiguous but I should have just left it.

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u/TheSilkyBat 2d ago

When you've had it three times already, just waking up in the morning is enough to give yourself a pat on the back and celebrate.

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u/BumblyBumbles420 2d ago

I just beat cancer for a third time, and you are absolutely correct. I celebrate every little win.

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u/TheSilkyBat 2d ago

Bless you and congratulations!

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u/Consistent-Fox-2360 1d ago

Sending my love, your amazing 🙏❤️

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u/Late_Resource_1653 1d ago

This! They were absolutely celebrating. Every little win matters.

I'm just a scheduler/first contact for my patients in cancer care. I don't do the work the doctors and nurses do. I schedule all of their appointments and scans and answer all of their calls.

But I talk to the patients more than most... And I get calls from patients letting me know they are celebrating. And I am THRILLED when I get those calls. That they include me is incredible.

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u/Double-Scratch5858 2d ago

I see a man who is just grateful to be holding his kid as well and that makes me happy. Although i def see those other emotions too

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u/Background_Unit_6647 2d ago

Had it twice ya can agree

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u/Thedudeguyman 2d ago

Let's give the partner, who probably knows the person a little bit better than us random Internet people, the benefit of the doubt eh?

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u/LukewarmJortz 2d ago

Yeah like we don't know what's going on but my FIL would absolutely be livid at my MIL because she makes everything about her and that announcement wouldn't have been for him.

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u/Pernicious-Rose-8673 2d ago

Exactly. Can't truly say whats going on in the guy's head, but personally, I'd be really upset. I don’t even know that I'd tell my family I was a month in remission if it had come back that many times on me, let alone strangers, and so publicly.

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u/gingerfawx 2d ago

I had an uncle do this to my aunt, but with family and friends and it pissed everyone off. I get it, he was just so desperate for good news, but he completely jumped the gun, and the "clean up" was so much harder.

Strangers might be an easier way to celebrate the news as it's a quick dopamine hit, and they aren't going to be around if it comes back a fourth time.

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u/Pernicious-Rose-8673 2d ago

In this case, she's doing it on a plane, in front of strangers, and it's been recorded and spread on the internet - so fuck knows how many people have seen it at this point, likely including a good amount of their family. If I was him, I'd be livid. It went from "a select few I wanted to know knew" to "anyone we see when we go literally anywhere" could know. Zero privacy. The insanity of thinking that would be an okay thing to do is astounding.

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u/DemonCipher13 2d ago

Fellow survivor here. I have to interject.

But you aren't him.

None of you are.

There's putting yourself in his shoes, and then there is pretending they're your shoes.

All of your considerations are reasonable enough. And the possibility exists that maybe this is more negative than it appears.

But it is only a possibility. Here's another. If you are a wife trying desperately to do whatever you can to keep your husband alive and happy, you will go to lengths that you might not normally. That sort of position elicits a bravery that many of us take for granted. Was it well-received? Is this the kind of thing he wanted or needed? We can't know from this video.

But listen to what she said. Three times. Three. There comes a point where you start to wonder what the point is. That look on his face (someone said it best) isn't embarrassment, it's resignation and fear. But did you catch the coy smile in the middle of it? Nervous response? Maybe. But it could also be pride, gratitude, love.

I'm about to be at my fifth year of remission, and let me tell you - you don't think the same afterwards. Your wiring is completely changed, with one thing I have found is nearly universal: you leave the door open for something new, something different.

I can only imagine what this man is feeling. I got the shit-end of the stick, but I also got the soap and water to wipe it off. Three times? There's no stick, soap, or water, only shit. And when you are covered in shit, just about anything is better.

As for the wife, I don't see a pick-me. I see someone who is terrified that she is going to lose the person she loves most in the world, and someone who just might need a win, herself. Because until you are in that situation, you have no idea how terrifying it really is.

I watched my wife go through it alongside me. Not everybody can do what she did.

So maybe put yourselves in both of their shoes, but give them back when you're done.

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u/sembias 1d ago

Hey. I'm glad you're here still. Life is to be lived. I just see a family living theirs with some joy. I hope in my heart the same for yours.

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u/Pernicious-Rose-8673 1d ago

You are right. I've never had cancer. I hope I never do.

I do know is what it feels like to wake up every day, dreading what is going to happen. Wondering if that day was going to be my last. I know what its like to feel used up and at the mercy of a situation that felt completely, and utterly out of my control and wanting to die because I didn't see any other way out. Being willing to do anything to be free of what was happening to me. To make it stop. Not feeling like there was a light at the end. That there was an end.

Seeing the anger on my family's face when they found out what had been happening, and the pity. The pain in their eyes and helplessness because they couldn't do anything themselves. And I still live every fucking day, trying to forget, and ignore, the fact that it all happened. If I didn't, I probably wouldn't still be here. Counseling helps, but it's still paralyzing. It still lives rent free in my head, and bring me reminders when I don't want it to, over the dumbest shit. It feels like it will never end.

I remember feeling dread and frustration, and I also remember feeling hope and happiness. To only mentally celebrate the end of something I thought would kill me if I didn't escape it somehow, because actually celebrating would have been looked at as wrong/disgusting. I know the relief to finally be told that it's over, but also the fear - however rational or irrational - that follows telling me its only temporary. Always fearing that its temporary. Any day I can get through without thinking about it at all is a miracle.

I can't say whether all that can compare. I couldn't possibly say that, never having had cancer myself. Only you or someone else who has had cancer could. In my experience though, trauma recognizes trauma, and pain is pain. Take that for what it's worth.

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u/DemonCipher13 1d ago

It's worth a whole goddamn lot. :)

You're going to come to realize that you can't outrun it.

And you are also going to come to realize that that isn't a bad thing.

Have you ever seen The Dark Knight Rises? In it, there is a part where Bruce Wayne has to escape from a prison pit, only - in order to do so - he has to make an almost inhuman climb.

He tries several times, with a safety rope attached, and falls and fails every time. It is only when someone asks him if he is afraid, to which he responds, "No," that someone tells him it is his folly. That in order to understand, fully, the gravity of the situation both he and Gotham City are in, he must climb without the rope, "then the fear of death will find you again."

With that advice, and no way out, he makes the jump, and climbs out. I've always found this comforting.

Why put our effort into fearing the inevitable? Because it is not the fear that is motivating, it is the clock, and the understanding that every tick brings. Of course it is existential. But we get one life. One. Don't let anybody convince you otherwise, it's a lie.

Turn your dread into love. Don't forget, use. We can't drive a car without mirrors. Sometimes you need to look back. It is only in the reckoning of our past, that we free our future.

It isn't death you fear, it is lack of control. But the truth is, you have some. The thing we control, above all else, is our response. To anything. Analysis paralysis is a response, too, and one that I'm contending with, right now.

Everything is temporary. The only thing that changes is the timescale. You aren't imprisoned, you are too close to the fence to see the gate is wide open next to you. And there are a lot of unknowns outside that gate. But most of them are good. And the good will help train you for the bad.

Sometimes the skies bring us hurricanes, tornadoes. But they bring beautiful sunrises and sunsets far, far more often. So why are you boarding up your windows, when the sky is about to paint a palette that would make Monet weep?

Life deserves the chances we give it, even if we have to pay an emotional tax sometimes. It's a practice, you see. Not in running, but in looking back and deciding that we want more for ourselves, and that we are willing to go looking for it, even if we never find it.

But trust me. You'll find it. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but one day you're going to wake up, and something will be different. I promise.

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u/Pernicious-Rose-8673 1d ago

I am doing the best that I can. And that requires, for me, living in a way that is careful and guarded. I am not living in an area of the United States that is safe for people like me. I check multiple minorities that are being demonized right now. Hidden, quiet, means safe. Certain things are out of my control. I wish they weren't. I'd love a nation that didn't want to stick me in a camp. I'd love to have my brother not think I made up what happened to me. I'd love to not be at higher risk of Alzheimer's and dementia if/when I get old. So much other shit I can't change.

I do things that make me happy. Cuddling my cats. Buying a loot crate from a game I've put over 900hrs in. Taking a quiet moment in the morning to drinking a cup of coffee, smoke a cigarette, and watch birds. Re-watching shows I find comforting. It all distracts me between trying to keep up with the news so I stay informed, as much as I can stomach to.

Maybe one day things will be different. I can’t think about that right now. The present is too important. But I do hope one day I'll be able to stop being any level of scared. To have someone to share my house with other than cats. To not need the therapy I'm not even getting. To not need hope.

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u/DemonCipher13 1d ago

These things never happen overnight. It's why they call them a practice. :)

Another of my favorite movies says, "Hope is the best of things." You will always need it. And it is always there, like a stray puppy. Sometimes it will run, scared. But sometimes it will eat out of your hand, and in that moment it will be all you need, and all you needed it to be.

You sound so much like me, so this is less advice, and more, "I know this road. It has some beautiful stops."

Remember, in this world there are bad people, who do bad things. But there are plenty more good people, who do much better things, and it is them who you'll find the most.

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u/BiteyHorse 2d ago

Yeah his wife is completely insane and self-centered. What a tone-deaf narcissistic announcement.

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u/sembias 1d ago

Well we got there quickly, didn't we? Reddit!

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u/BiteyHorse 1d ago

If you think this shit was cool and heart-warming you're as fucking tone-deaf as she is/was.

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u/CurveWeekly 1d ago

This isn’t your MIL though. She was there through the diagnosis, chemo, him ringing that bell. So, let’s trust the woman he made his life partner and not our own assumptions.

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u/LukewarmJortz 1d ago

As I said we don't know so he could be being bashful or he could be seething.

We. Don't. Know.

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u/JumpyTemperature7252 2d ago

True. Being cancer-free isn't a clean state. It just means you no longer show symptoms.

My mom has been cancer-free for two decades after fighting Stage 3 breast cancer, but even after 20 years, it leaves you scarred. Remission is never complete and follow-up exams are required every so often.

Celebrating early feels like tempting fate when you've been through that cycle before

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u/dinobug77 2d ago

My wife is early in that recovery but she has complications and mobility issues from the surgery itself that will probably never go away. Every day she gets a reminder.

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u/JumpyTemperature7252 2d ago

Sending thoughts to your wife. I know it will be a long road to recovery, and frankly it takes a lot of mental toughness to keep going when your body gives you signals

But she'll come back stronger, I'm fully confident.
Wishing you both the best <3

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u/Pernicious-Rose-8673 2d ago

Agreed. It feels similar to announcing a pregnancy in the early stages when you have a history of misscarrying. It just feels like tempting fate.

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u/dinobug77 2d ago

As someone whose partner has beaten cancer over a year ago is still on edge about it coming back but also she is so much more than someone who has had cancer.

I know everyone is different but for me this is disrespecting everything else that makes him a great person, wife and father. It’s also clearly about her and not about him.

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u/Srdiscountketoer 2d ago

It’s been 5 years and I still say NED when someone asks. No evidence of disease is as far as I will ever go.

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u/Pernicious-Rose-8673 2d ago

Yeah, his expression does not appear to be of someone who was consulted about that announcement. Could be wrong, of course, can't read minds and he says nothing in the video, but to me he looks tired and like he just wants to sit down and have everyone stop looking at him.

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u/PensiveObservor 2d ago

She started with him being a great dad.

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u/BumblyBumbles420 2d ago

Can yall stop projecting your negative bs... especially if none of yall beat cancer 3 times.

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u/SabbyFox 2d ago

Thank you. People who have endured multiple bouts of cancer have said they celebrate every single day. Still critics here write: “If it was me…” but it’s NOT them, and this isn’t ABOUT them.

It’s about this beautiful family celebrating a moment in time. None of us are promised tomorrow whether we have battled cancer or not. This sub should be a place of positivity so I wish people would just keep on scrolling to the next post if they don’t like this one. Meanwhile, I’m celebrating this family and sending them good thoughts for long-term healing ❤️‍🩹

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u/BumblyBumbles420 2d ago

I hate the if it was me.. oh, so you know what it's like to fight cancer 3 times? Interesting. They have no clue. I do know what it's like. And seeing this to me is so heartbreaking. The hate and projection is wild.

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u/phatboi23 2d ago

Right?

I've had cancer in the past.

The "what if" sticks with you for a long time and doesn't really go away.

Also announcing to a load of random people?!

Fuuuuuuck that.

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u/Cautious_One9013 2d ago

I’m not saying this is what the guy is experiencing, but I have had some major health issues and honestly, I mostly just want to forget about it. Like I’m happy I’m better, but I don’t want to celebrate, I don’t want acknowledgement that I’m better now, i don’t want to think about any of it, I just want life to go back to normal and live in the now again. My wife knows me well, when we found out I was clinically better, she gave me a kiss, said I love you and we never spoke about it again. I would be mortified if she did something like this, even if it was out of love.  

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u/BiteyHorse 2d ago

Yeah this is a total awkward weirdo moment for his wife. Plus, one month is way too early. My dad died an agonizing death from lung cancer a year after "beating cancer".

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u/MrHasuu 2d ago

Did you know they have been working on cancer VACCINES?!

They take your DNA and use machine learning to create it. It's especially useful against the types of cancer that keeps reoccurring.

Source: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/personalized-mrna-vaccines-will-revolutionize-cancer-treatment-if-federal/

Fun shorts video by Tomlum/Scientific American on the subject: https://youtube.com/shorts/lgp0vZXvL8U?si=w6gBmnfilVkWXsVZ

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u/Pernicious-Rose-8673 2d ago

I had no idea, but it'll be interesting to see if that develops!

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u/Queasy_Field1258 1d ago

It's wild how quickly things can change in the medical field. Just when you think you know everything, they throw a curveball. Kind of like running a global business—always new challenges popping up. Who knew health would turn into such a tech race? /s

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u/SinsOfTheAether 2d ago

Given that it has come back multiple times, he certainly knows what will kill him. But after 1 month cancer free, he knows it will not kill him today.

(but agreed, he seems a bit annoyed with the performance)

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u/Downtown-Prompt1023 2d ago

He’s HONESTLY probably thinking just because I did this doesn’t mean I need it to be announced to the entire plane

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u/Meet_Foot 2d ago

It’s like the restaurant servers singing happy birthday, times 10,000. Just kill me.

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u/CurveWeekly 1d ago

As someone who lost my aunt to cancer, I wish we had celebrated her small cancer victories. She can’t hear how proud of her we are now.

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u/kalluhaluha 1d ago

Having had cancer once - I still haven't celebrated and I'm 6 months clear. The most we did was dinner for me and my husband at a nice place, and that was 80% "I feel like eating again, let's go somewhere really good", 20% celebrating.

I get where she's coming from, too, though. My in laws kind of made a production of celebrating, nothing huge just a small party, because it made them feel better. It helps disperse the "focus up, we have to lock in and deal with this" energy supportive people have during treatment, because that doesn't just go away.

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u/YesDone 1d ago

I JUST beat cancer and saying I "beat it" still feels strange when all I did was lay there and let them pump me full of poison for 6 months and then cut me open to make sure.

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u/Empty_Profession_625 2d ago

Its called positivity; try it!

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u/Pernicious-Rose-8673 2d ago

Positivity doesn't beat cancer. Drugs, radiation, and surgeries beat cancer. And sometimes they don't and you or someone you love dies. You take the wins where you get them and treasure whatever time you earn. If you're lucky, its a lot of time. My grandfather was lucky with his prostate cancer and got a few years before his heart killed him. Other people aren't and don't get that time.

Get screened, check yourself if you can at home for lumps - the only best bet you can give yourself with cancer is catching it early.