Hi
I watched Casualty on Saturday, and I was very disturbed by the Breast Cancer story they ran alongside Ruth’s Suicide. I felt the way the BBC handled it was applling, and it was very insensitive.
Has anyone else any thoughts? It must have upset many women with BC, especially those of us who are recently DX and coming to terms with it, I felt the implication that the woman would die (and did in fact), was awful, also the way the Doctor spoke to her? OMG
I still feel scarred by it and I am debaiting complaining to the BBC.
Anybody else have any comments/opinions?
It was so insensitive it was bad taste, almost like a comedy sketch.
I’m all for real life being brought into fiction etc, BUT when they said “if you have been affected by any of the issues in tonight’s episode, ring our help line”…, they must know they are hitting the core of people’s emotions, and yes I do know I could have turned it off!!!
Hi
i know exactely what you mean it was awful. I watched casualty with my daughter and she was very upset by the breast cancer story run alongside Ruth’s suicide attempt.
I was sickened by the surgery and also the speed of her brain mets and death. it would have made any BC sufferer terrified.
She suddenly appeared with a head scarf on which i assume meant she had had chemo and lost her hair. Pathetic BBC to show this.
Maybe i will write to the radio times.
Any poor woman recently DX would be terrified after watching that.
I also watched Casualty on Saturday night with my head spinning all over the place. My poor husband tried to turn it off as he felt it very bad taste to show such deterioration in the space of 10 mins, it really upset him and bought things crashing back to him, he was really upset by it. I was horrified by the storyline and did not think it had any real significance to Ruth’s suicide and other story-lines could have been pursued instead which would have been much more relevant perhaps delving more into her past. I could only imagine the horror that must have been felt by other women out there just diagnosed and hopefully full of hope for the future. I felt like phoning that line myself afterwards and ranting at them. I guess though if you put up a helpline then that excuses everything!!!
For anyone out there just diagnosed, my cousin had a very aggressive BC 10 years ago this March, had chemo, rads and WLE and is very much alive and enjoying her grandchildren and living life to the full and now never even thinks of BC until it is time for her 3 year check up the same as anyone else who has never had BC.
I agree it was ludicrous and very unrealistic, I think it was just used as a dramatic device so the patient could try to tell Ruth that she herself had dedicated her life to her job at the expense of people and look where it had got her. Moral of the story: hey don’t be a career gal, you might get BC. Durrrrrrrr, as Bridget Jones would say. These things have to be taken with a barrel load of salt but yes, someone terrified and newly dx would maybe not realise how unrealistic it was.
Hi girls,
This sounds terrible and really insensitive. I didn’t see it, but if any of you who did see it could summon up the energy/courage to write in, it really would make a difference. I heard once that for every letter they get, they estimate that a thousand people share that view, so they really do listen. It doesn’t have to be fantastically written, just explain in your own words what you thought. Please consider it. We can’t have them getting away with it - it’s blatant misinformation of the public!
Jacquie
I saw this and am heartily sick of how BC, and indeed, cancer, is portrayed in “dramas” on TV. A few days after I was diagnosed I remember seeing Lynette on Desperate Housewives mother describing her breast cancer experience as “curled up in agony in a corner puking into a bucket” and it absolutely terrified me. And another cancer story on Medium which showed the sufferers with wispy hair with balding patches and sores all over their faces. I was so scared and horrified by this.
I have always been a big fan of this programme but like the rest of you was shocked to see a women with bc shown in this light and even more shocked that they ran it along side the suicide story, I did get the point that she was trying to say enjoy your life as it may end sooner than you think but there could have been a better way of saying the same thing, I was only dx with bc in December and still have my rediotherapy and further surgery to go and this programme could have terrifed me if I did not know the information I have gained from this site and my oc. I think the bbc should be told with a refernce to this discussion so they are aware how it has affected real people with bc.
I also saw casualty saturaday night and was realy quite upset by it ,i dont these program makers realise how insensitive and disturbing this sort of thing can be to those of us who have been DX with BC.I was feeling pretty positive untill watching it then felt quite down for a while as it brought all the fears of liveing with BC to the surface again. These programs always seem to want to portray cancers in the worst possible way im also sick and tired of dramas using these sort of horror story lines just to boost there viewing figures.What goods the helpline when the damage is already done.Yes I think mabe a few complaints to the BBC is nessisary .
I fell asleep (chemo induced) during Casualty so can’t comment on the story line though I have heard that it was a moving one. Medical soaps are not renowned for their accurate coverage of any disease, including cancer. (The Holby City storyline of a surgeon operating while having chemo is pretty misleading in my book) But hey we can’t expect soapland to get illness right or to stop the minute we get a cancer (or any other) diagnosis.
Roughly 80% of women in the UK with breast cancer now survive 5 years…fact
Some of those 80% will still die of breast cancer…fact…(and I think its a big problem that no one likes to tell us exactly how many of those ‘surviving’ 80% do actually die)
Sometimes breast cancer spreads very quickly and some women die in less than a year…fact.
I think we deny these facts at our cost. We owe it to oursleves and to the 12,500 women who die annually of bc in the UK not to sanitise reality.
Well, I didn’t see it either, but it sounds very like another episode I saw a few years ago which featured a woman with fibroids who had to have a hysterectomy. As someone who has been through this very same experience, I found the account of her emotions, surgery and post-surgical recovery quite unlike anything I’d witnessed in real life.
Coming back to breast cancer, I think it’s highly irresponsible to portray the realities of cancer treatments inaccurately. I have direct personal experience of the consequences: I was so frightened by what I’d seen on TV and in films about the effects of chemotherapy that I delayed going to my doctor after I became aware of the lump in my breast. It wasn’t cancer that scared me, it was the image of a sickly, puking woman with no hair and very little reason to continue living that scared the hell out of me. If I’d known the reality - that chemo is difficult but doable and that many women, including me, continue to work through it - then I wouldn’t have delayed that visit to the doctor and my cancer would have been less advanced than it is.
So it makes me very angry indeed if the wrong information is still being put about in the media, TV and film. Grrrr.
I too was terrified of chemotherapy because of the image of constant vomiting and nausea. Most of us are incredibly lucky that we now live in the times of such brilliant anti emetic drugs…10-15 years ago it was quite differnet. The anti emetics don’t work for everyone and a few do still suffer horribly.
I’d love a TV soap to portray the realities of boring old chemo ‘fatigue’ I remember before my first chemo, my chemo nurse looked me in the eye and said : ‘You won’t be sick’. She added: Faitgue will be the worse thing’…and I thought…‘Oh thats Ok then’ As it has tunred out many chemos later I have never been sick and being a vomit phobic I am just so grateful for this small mercy…but oh fatigue and the messing with your head that chemo brings…I hate it.
I didn’t see this programme but it sounds very upsetting. If you wish to contact the makers you can email them at bbc.co.uk/drama/casualty/
Or you could start a thread on the BBC TV message boards if you wanted to engage people beyond this Breast Cancer Care community Best wishes
I didn’t see the programme so I’m not in a position to comment but the idea of starting a BBC thread to reach out to a wider audience appeals.
There are enough women here to keep hi-jacking the thread to keep it top of the agenda. As someone who is newly diagnosed and still ‘learning’ reaching a wider audience to change attitudes seems important. Although I think you need to register to post on the message boards.
Trish
I recently went to an exhibition of photos at the V and A by Lee Miller who was married to a surrealist painter at one point. There was a picture in the exhibition of an amputated breast on a plate. It was apparently meant to represent the condition of women.
I managed to cope with it but I can’t say I thought it was that great an image. I preferred the photo of Lee Miller taken in Hitler’s bath after the liberation of Berlin.
Casualty and Holby have in the past featured breast cancer and have never portrayed it at all realistically. It’s always sensationalised. But as Jim says it isn’t real life
Hi Jim
I can understand what your saying BUT even soaps / Drama do the dreadful real life scenes well.
for example in this programme of casualty Ruths suicide was very moving. Coronation St and Veras death was very moving too.
I dont watch a lot of soaps but i am sure others could add to this thread of occassions where they have been ‘real’ in re-enacting moving events.
Rx
I think we have to remember it isn’t real life, I didn’t see Casualty on saturday, but if Holby city is anything to go by then I can imagine it wasn’t a very realistic portrail of cancer paitents/treatments…[i do watch Holby though].
Following on from Liverbirds post…If I remember rightly, the story around Alice in Emmerdale and her fight with Cancer and consequent death was very moving.