In the name of true bc “awareness”, would it really be so difficult for journalists and presenters to be trained as to some very basic facts about bc as per Ade’s interview?
I would be interested to know also what Breast Cancer Care has done (or proposes to do) about the usual sort of reporting of bc. I (and others) have emailed newspapers etc but it would carry a lot more clout if BCC got involved and wrote to everyone and said - look at this report from Ade Edmonson and stop talking about battles, inaccurate all-clears etc etc which are extremely wrong and unhelpful to those experiencing real world bc.
Extremely well written Ade.
I totally agree with him for not using terms such as battle and struggle and fight- thank you.
A far more realistic viewpoint than that of Bernie Nolan-anyone just starting chemotherapy really doesn’t want to see a bald woman.
Just read this article and I agree. Ade was honest and just getting on with it, as you do. I was diagnosed in 2004 and am in my last year of Arimidex. My mum had just died of it. I knew I had it but said nothing until 2 days after her funeral. It then took 5 doctors and 3 months to get a diagnosis. It was all in my head apparently. The surgery, chemo, radio done, the hair gone and come back again, the sweats still here, but you get around it and now osteoperosis and broken bones from the treatment. I don’t see it as a battle either, just something you have to live through to hopefully get to the other side of it. I refused wigs because I wasn’t going to apologise for having cancer. Shaving my hair off was rather liberating, but I had no choice unless I wanted to look like Arthur Scargill. We laughed, cried, screamed, but mainly just put our heads down in determination. I’m now doing a degree that I started years ago. I take each day and each set-back as it comes. There is a light at the end of the long tunnel. The medical staff have been great on the whole. I wish everyone well on their journey through this. Singing helps. Laughing halps. Getting on with your life helps. Luck and Love. Lainey x
What an ab fab article! I couldn’t agree more. I’m so fed up with irritating articles about battles and bravery. The reality is the grind. I’m fortunate enough to not have gone through chemo but am awaiting bilateral mastectomies. Having to make the sorts of decisions we do is the hard part, the rest just happens to you. I keep meeting people who tell me they heard I was ill and how they hope I’m feeling better. I’ve not actually felt ill so keep getting taken by surprise, then I have to remind myself that they’re talking about the cancer. One friend asked me how my baps were. I didn’t have to think about that one and it brought a smile. Think I may use that one myself!
Lurve nicky xx
I tend to avoid the Daily Mail like the plague and I haven’t been on this site for a while so it is the first time I have seen this article. But thank you so much for posting it. What a breath of fresh air.
Ade Edmonson I bloody love you.
Thanks so much for posting this. Have just sent it on to husband whom I think feels quite alone, and I don’t know what to do about it. He also seems to be talking more to his bottle of wine, and I don’t like it much, but don’t know what else to suggest. It’s very hard for all close family of bc sufferers, but especially so for partners because I think there is an additional impact on physical intimacy which is hugely common for a lot of different reasons and often very difficult to address.
It is very hard for men to talk about their emotions. Even more so when they have to face the fact that their wife has cancer (primary or secondary) and they are providing unconditional physical and emotional support to us. Well done Ade on this eye-opening interview and well done to the reporter for, we hope, remaining faithful to Ade’s intentions on how the article would be written.
Hi - sorry it’s a bit delayed, but I’ve got a response for you from the Breast Cancer Care press team (responding to No1Mummy’s post about what Breast Cancer Care does to encourage responsible reporting about breast cancer). Here it is:
"We work on a daily basis with journalists to help ensure more accurate reporting and the reality of what living with breast cancer means. We put them in direct contact with those living with the disease or who have had treatment whenever we possibly can to communicate their experience.
We work with individual journalists on specific issues to encourage better awareness and understanding and do sometimes respond to articles (good or bad)! but would always encourage anyone to respond themselves.
Most recently, we have worked closely with a number of journalists on the UK’s first ever secondary breast cancer awareness day to start to build understanding in this area and hope to build on this each year.
The often frustrating and limited choice of language and use of the phrase ‘all clear’ is ingrained in our culture and particularly used by the media as a short-hand (especially in short articles) to say that someone has come to the end of their treatment. One of the most powerful and effective ways that we can help to counter such language is through well-known people like Ade Edmondson sharing their personal experiences and communicating the reality to a wide audience through the mass media. Many of our ambassadors and supporters have experienced breast cancer or are close to someone who has experienced it.
We will soon be launching a new look ‘media centre’ on our website where we aim to address some of the issues around language."
Thank you Leah/BCC, I am pleased to hear what is being done. I think this sort of initiative is so important. I sometimes think that bc patients are living in some sort of parallel universe where the reality is so different to the media portrayal of “battles” and “all-clears”.
If you think back to 20-30 years ago, bc wasn’t even spoken about properly. Progress has been made but there is still work to be done and it is simply wrong to pretend that bc isn’t a cruel, devastating disease. Newly-dx’d patients desperately want hope but this should not be at the expense of the 1/3 of those dx’d who aren’t on the good side of the statistics.
Not sure what Finty meant about the all clear nonsense but if you were referring to the getting the all clear after five years nonsense, I’m totally with you. I will try not to be too negative here, but unlike other cancers, you never get the all clear from breast cancer. Recurrence rates are high and secondaries can show up several years after the five year period is finished. If you are well and healthy, all good but don’t get complacent. I’m not suggesting you spend your life in gloom and doom, but any unexplained aches and pains, should be checked out straight away and checking for lumps should continue even many years after your treatment is finished.
I agree - it’s best to keep checking yourself beyond the 5 years and just have a general awareness of anything not being quite right with you. I had an aunt who lived about 35 years beyond aggressive BC (it was also in her family, her mum and sister both died) - she never missed any check ups she had to go for and regularly checked herself. However, she was also able to put it in the background and didn’t let it rule her life. She was always a very busy person prior to cancer and remained like that afterwards which I think helped. I have also never met anyone as cheerful as her and I think about her a lot as I was diagnosed 2 months after her death.
It is intersting to note how risk soars in the first couple of years post dx before starting to decline.
It ultimately comes back to original individual prognosis - a large TN tumour with multiple node involvement is a world apart from a small grade 1 node neg ER+ tumour.
It needs to be remembered too that statistics are not up to date - many of them are pre-AI and pre-Herceptin.
What a good article, but I nearly hit the roof reading the comments. All I can say to someone called Deana is that I hope she never has to join this club that none of us asked to join…
Thanks Ms Molly for posting that link, that is probably the most straightforward explanation i have ever read(I am a bit of a thicko and find some articles a bit too difficult to follow) It doesn’t make my prognosis any better though
I thought Ade’s article was also a good read and have printed it off for hubbie.
I have just come across this thread and wanted to say found great comfort in it. When the Ade Edmonson article was published, it was very early days for me so most things were a blur but I do remember feeling a bit confused at The One Show’s comments that Jennifer Saunders had received the all clear.
My husband who has been my greatest support, didn’t like my use of the word brutal to describe chemotherapy. Don’t know why, maybe he just wanted me to continually put a brave face on for others which I know that lots of us try to do. However, having given the article to him to read, it has helped both of us greatly.
Still a long way to go for me but thanks to all for sharing thoughts and comments.
