The illness that nurses are most afraid of

Nurses may know how to keep away the flu or the common cold, but there are some illnesses that, sadly, are more difficult to prevent. We asked you, our Facebook fans, which illness or ailment you’d most like to avoid in your lifetime. You let down your guard and gave us these touching and truthful responses.

Breast cancer is my biggest fear. It affects so many women; it almost seems inevitable that we all will suffer from it at some point in our lives.
—Brenda Griffin Long

CANCER! The word alone scares me and I’ve been a nurse for 25 years. I’ve seen too many family members, friends and patients go through it. The cure is worse than the disease, and to see someone you love deal with this monster of a disease is devastating. Wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy!
—Patricia Fitzmaurice

Cancer, without question! I lost my biological mother, foster mother, brother-in-law and a best friend to cancer. It is an ugly disease that eats away at the heart of the victim and sucks the life out of them.
—Trish Fielder

Cancer, AIDS, ESRD and DM, in that order. When you have seen not only patients, but people that you hold dear to your heart suffer and die from these diseases, you dread them the most.
—Shorna Mckenzie

Any disease that takes my body away and leaves my mind. I watched my dad go through a brain tumor and I remember him telling me a couple of weeks before he died, “I hope you never live in a body that will not work.”
—Mary Buskohl

One illness that I would want to avoid is MS! It’s such a debilitating disease. It’s very heartbreaking watching such young people whose minds are not affected being trapped in bodies they have no control over. It’s like being buried alive!
—Sophia Labarbera-Limone

ALS, MS, dementia or AIDS. What a horrible, painful existence for people with these diseases. That’s why living wills are a wonderful thing. I have one. No ventilator for me…just let me go. Hopefully in peace and with my dignity.
—Angie Woods

Anything that restricts my breathing. COPD, asthma, lung cancer, CF…without “airway” there is no breathing. What an awful way to live!
—Jessica Robinson Dlugasch

I would have to say cancer of any kind and/or anything restricting my airway. I don’t want anything painful, because the first time you push that call light for pain meds because the last ones didn’t work, you are labeled a “drug seeker” and then your pain is not treated as it should be. So sad to see so many patients in pain who have been labeled through no fault of their own.
—Tricia Escalante

Migraines. They are debilitating, but some people do not believe they exist, while others use them as excuses to get drugs. True migraine suffers know narcotics are not the answer.
—Tina Marie Darbo-Murray

Shingles and the nerve damage it can cause. I have seen my dad hit himself in the head trying to relieve the pain and there is nothing I can do. The doctors don’t treat that kind of pain with the same pain meds they use for cancer or any other disease. Neurontin only goes so far!
—Claudia Bell

Diabetes. More and more of my patients have it and, after dealing with it at home 24/7 with my son for the last eight years, I’ve had enough!
—April Nothdurft Zieger

Obesity. It has been named such a strong predictor of so many other diseases.
—Julia Hopkins

If you could choose one ailment to avoid forever, what would it be and why?