Try this link:
community.macmillan.org.uk/forums/p/23139/277228.aspx#277228
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Yes Bahons you are right it did get my back up!! Can’t comment further as my language will be appalling.
take care kittyx
Perhaps the journalist didnt phrase it very well. I have had a determined and eventful time but was grateful that I didnt lose a limb or an eye etc., and also it made me look at my life and change it considerably - I no longer teach, work long exhausting hours or try to be superwoman. I also had a grandson 3 weeks before mastectomy so had something to divert and drive me at the time.
I say all this knowing that I am so much luckier than most with DCIS/IC being caught on 2nd routine mammogram and that sentinel node is being done now rather than taking most of the nodes (in case).
To reach a positive outcome you must have achieved good results, have good prognosis and be absolutely happy in mind, body and soul. For most of us we do not see into the future and even with me on Tamoxifen and all that brings life plays cruel tricks and nothing is guaranteed. I also think its in poor taste to congratulate positve outcomes (short term) when so many go on to experience the darker side with pain, daily fighting to live and families torn apart.
I dont want to buy the magazine to read how wonderful this disease could be! When are the media to realise that prettying it up does us no favours when we get to live the reality.
God bless to all BC people and to all “one day at a time” will do nicely.
your response was brilliantly written Bahons
I can only echo the above!
Well done Bahons!! So glad that you were challenging with that woman!! She needs her head testing using language like that!!Very very insulting, let’s hope no-one takes her up on it!!
Best wishes
Leadie
A great response Bahon.
I am fed up with the media trying to make bc attractive! and profiting from it.
Daisy - I agree to feel positive you need good results. Unfortunately for a lot of us this is not the case.
Despite attending regular mammograms my bc which was lobular had travelled to 6 lymph nodes necessitating mx and anc plus i was Her2 and had 18 months of herceptin not to mention rads and 8 chemos all of which has left me with lymphoedema. All the articles and programmes in the world will never convince me there has been anything positive about this. I now have a fat arm and feel and am a lesser person than I was before.
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Oh dear, not another ‘positive, pink fluffy’ bc 'message ’ from someone who has no clue about bc. Good for you Bahons with your replies to someone so ignorant and unfeeling.
R xxx
…is she for real?? All I can say is Bahons, you GO GIRL!!!
LX
Hi Ladies,
It’s already been done badly before anyway as Bahons says. Good Housekeeping did it last month with a bunch of celebrities(Look How Far We’ve Come). When it’s done in a very 2 dimensional way like that it rubs salt in the wounds of those with less fortunate outcomes. It even makes it look as though those who didn’t get good results just didn’t try hard enough. It gets on my T*t.
I do try to give people the benefit of the doubt. I assume her motive is to show that some people do come through it and get their lives back but if she genuinely believes that it’s ever an uplifting experience she needs a dose of reality. She really should do some research before penning a request like that and I hope her badly conceived article never sees the light of day.
When it’s done well i.e shown from different perpectives and how the human spirit copes with all that comes it can be a very positive thing. BBC2 did it very well in a recent documentary filmed in Scotland. Not all the outcomes were positive but the spirit of the individuals shone through regardless.
Jan xx
Hi S and everyone
I’m disgusted by that woman’s outrageous and cynical use of our suffering to make her name in whichever mag will buy her “feature”. And very pleased to see your (and other) challenging replies to her post.
I have advanced, secondary, incurable, terminal BC – what positives can we find in that??
Marilyn xx
Some one else jumping on the bandwaggon.Like everyone else unless you have been there you don’t know what it’s like. These type of journalists make me sick,trying to make a quick buck on people suffering.The only positive i have found ,from this site and at chemo sessions ,is that we are all in the same boat and looking out for each other.
What am I doing wrong girls. I clicked on the link but can only see front page. Should I be doing more? what bit of the site are you talking about…love Val
Val, I think they may have removed the entire thread.
There were a lot of angry posts on there, including some by me. I did wonder if I was overreacting a bit, but many of us seem to feel the same way, so perhaps not. It was quite funny really; I typed one reply, went off and did something - hoovering I think it was - and a load more things came into my head, so I posted again.
This link is to something very similar in tone and content to what she (Christabel Smith) posted on the Macmillan site:
nl-nl.facebook.com/pages/Chemo-Chic/144460176150?v=feed&story_fbid=203178136150&ref=mf
So you can see why it upset a lot of people.
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Umm, I’ve had a look at the Facebook page and can’t see anything offensive in any of that. So what did she write on the Macmillan forum that has so incensed everyone?
I don’t get it.
Yours, confused.
Flora xx
Edited to add: I was getting confused by the actual Chemo Chic blog and Facebook site, whereas you were just referring to Christabel’s post. It made it look like it was her site, at first glance…
Are you upset she is asking for postitive stories? Still confused…
The only positive we can acknowledge is waking up in the morning, looking in the mirror and saying “you made another day”.
chemo chic???..you,ve got to be joking…glamourising breast cancer???..how…???..oh i cant write what i think of that!!!..
Hi Flora,
I didn’t find her post offensive it just made me angry. Not quite the same thing. The Facebook version is shorter and has left out much of what irritated me. She wanted to hear from people who found their breast cancer experience uplifting and if it had enriched and improved their lives.
I don’t object to people looking for the positives in life but to present bc in a purely positive light is misleading at best. We have some wonderful ladies on this site who have remained positive despite the awful things that they face. I think few of them would say bc has improved their lives.
Jan xx
It DOES get my back up everytime BCC archive a lively discussion simply because it makes them feel uncomfortable.
Archived material doesn’t completely disappear: just becomes harder to find and of course, newbies who didn’t see it the first time, won’t even think to look through the archives…
Suggest you look for more on similar lines by checking out “Topic: Clarrissa Luard (deceased) - a former Mrs Rushdie” in archive 1996
Holeybones
Hi all
I don’t think it was the ‘positive’ aspect that was quite the worst of the two. Altho’ that was bad enough. On the Macmillan site, where she posted, there are a lot of people, I’m guessing rather more than on here, who have a terminal diagnosis and quite understandably felt it was inappropriate.
For me asking for ‘brave, beautiful women aged between 18-40 with an amzing story to tell’ probably took the biscuit. We’ve done ‘brave’ a lot on here and I think the word implies a choice we don’t have. Beautiful? Well, short, tall and fat boring older-than-40 women get breast cancer too, as well as dazzling young ones. And to ask for a photo - well. It would have been a cattle market, with a team of editors selecting the most ‘photogenic’.
Amazing? What’s amazing about getting breast cancer? There’s thousands of us with it, all of us different. I can just see the headline…“I found my lump at the top of Everest” …
I’m NOT a negative person, but I do find the term ‘positive’ overworked. I think even after my first bc primary in 1993 (Grade 1, no nodes, didn’t need chemo or rads, just had ovaries removed instead) with an excellent prognosis, I’d have been hard pushed to describe the experience as ‘positive’. I regarded it as just something life had thrown at me, which could have been a great deal worse. Now after another primary in 2004 and a grim prognosis, currently being played out by the looks of things, I’m grateful for every day that turns out to be a ‘normal’ one.
I can’t imagine a similar post asking for ‘brave, handsome men aged between 18-40…’ to wax lyrical on their experiences of prostate cancer…
It wasn’t BCC that pulled the thread; it was Macmillan on their site. This is the only thread about this journalist on here (that I know of).
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