Excellent BC article in Mail!

Public Archive
1

I was really pleased to see the mail covering BC in a helpful way for a change.
They published Tessa Cunningham’s diary throughout her BC journey.
I could have written it myself it was so close to my own treatment. It showed clearly what an emotional roller coaster it is.

I got very upset today with hubby. He told me about 2 work colleagues one who had ovarian cancer one with bowel cancer both have had the cancer return. When i got upset he said ‘They havent had breast cancer’
I know the treatments for BC are so much more improved now and probably better than with other cancers but it does annoy me how people dismiss how serious it is. Also how scared we always are of it returning.
So many have died since i joined BCC in 2005, i hate people minimising it all.

Rx

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Tessa Cunningham’s diary is poignant reading - I hope she is continuing to recover from her annus horribilis - an awful lot of us are journeying with her, ahead or behind her.

Agree Liverbird that BC is seen as the most treatable… I cling to that consolation too, in these early days on my own journey with it. Nobody said it would be easy…

Lyn xxx

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My sister in England read the article and got a lot of comfort from it - we’re very close and she’s horribly shocked by what’s descended on me, maybe more than I am. She read out parts of it on the phone to me last night, and it did sound very familiar - I liked the up-note it ended with - that there had been good in the experience as well as bad.

4

I also thought it was an excellent article and I think she portrays her bc journey in a way that we can all empathise with, particularly in what she says following her last radiotherapy treatment - “It’s like emerging from a nuclear holocaust, staggering into the daylight, weeping with the sheer joy of seeing colour and life”.

I have to confess that I actually cried after reading it, which I think helped me to release some of the pent up emotions I have been carrying, even though it’s four years since I was diagnosed. As you rightly say, Ruth, the fear of recurrence never goes away and is one of the hardest parts of living with this horrible disease.

Jo

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Hello all, I read the article in the daily mail with particular interest as Tessa was treated in the same hospital as me and under the same onc. I am only at the beginning on bc treatment (2nd chemo tomorrow). One thing though Grade 3 tumour means advanced? thought it meant more aggressive. I thought advacned used to mean secondaries. Sorry Tessa had this in the article so was unsure if correct.

Rach

6

Hi everyone,

I read this article - very good, but last bit irked me - she said that she has to wait five years before she gets the “all clear” and we know it’s not quite like that is it.

Janeyb

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very true ! After having bc I feel I can never feel be totally ‘clear’. I would be NED

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I put a comment on the mail website to say I didn’t agree with the all clear after five years, and they haven’t put it on!

9

I have commented on a past bc article on the Mail website and that didn’t get posted either. Probably because I had a view different to whatever angle they were harping on about in it