Dear Anne, was moved by your story an reminded me of a good friend who died of breast cancer about 3 years ago.
At that time we were all in a psychotherapy training and Lyn decided that she wanted to die at home with her friends around her. There was about 8 of us and we took it in turns to stay with here in her last weeks. At the end there were about 4 of us with her when she died. Her son turned up from Australia in the last few days and just couldn’t cope with it all. He wanted her in hospital so she could get more ‘treatment’ as he called it. But we held strong and refused to let her be moved because that’s what she wanted.
She died peacefully without her son there who was unable to cope with the actual death of his mother.
Leadie
I have just emailed my complaint to breakthrough, and am thinking about how I put on a brave face, as Anne so movingly described. I guess one of the most direct ways of changing expectations of how a person with cancer should behave- you know, brave, cheerful, positive and grateful, is by being honest ourselves, which is itself incredibly difficult because it strips us of a protective layer. perhaps there should be an award for honesty rather than bravery.
Best wishes, Nicky
Have e mailed my complaint to breakthrough and focussed on 3 things:
- how do you define brave ? Where do secondaries fit in to this - do you lose bravery points if you have secondaries?
2)this is a really cheap and tasteless marketing opp by champneys and avon, who aren’t offering much for a prize, and many women are told they can’t have any beuaty treatments after because of litigations risks.
- I really thought Breakthrough was above this.
I think whether you have a primay, secondaries or any sort of cancer this sort of stuff is totally tasteless. Is a woman wore brave because she has double mastectomy for DCIS, or perhaps more brave for 6 FEC? Don’t know, don’t care and Breakthrough should be ashamed.
Cathyx
Oh and one more thing Anne- your mother should meet my mother. Its amazing what we have to put up with,
take care,
cathyx
Dear katherine, agree that breakthrough should be ashamed of themselves. Ladies, please e-mail them if you feel strongly about the bravery award
Leadie
Hi Ann
I like the others agree with you. You hear people planning for the future but what is the future for us? I never plan for the year ahead as i am fearful of whether i will be around to see it. As for your mother, i have one like that as well…you will never change them.
I must admit i never feel that i can talk about how i feel because if i do i will let my guard down and the real fear of how long i will be around becomes reality. By ignoring it and keeping my fingers crossed it is like burrying your head in the sand i know but it is a way of getting through it.
Hi All,
Thanks for all your kind comments. I too have now emailed breakthrough and tried to make the point that being labelled as “brave” makes it difficult to be really honest even to ourselves about how we really feel about having no future.
It’s so hard to get the balance between not giving in to feeling hopeless and so not wanting to get out of bed and do anything and thus not being able to enjoy just being alive and between dashing about doing everything and going everywhere whilst you feel relatively well as I’m doing at the moment! I don’t want to waste crucial time by feeling sorry for myself and yet I dearly wish that I could believe I will make 40 let alone 50! I think, also that I’m scared to start being more honest when I’m feeling low in case people then avoid talking to me. People seem to find it hard just to listen and feel they have to issue platitudes all the time. I was trying to be honest with my sister about my fear about how much or little time I may have left and she just tries to put a positive spin all the time mentioning people like Lance Armstrong so I feel like I’m being negative if I say that a recovery like he’s had is unlikely to happen to me so I give up mentioning it. I have got used to living in the moment that I assume that loved ones and friends understand that I could decline at any time but I don’t think they really do! I got texts and calls all the time last year when I was on weekly chemo and after my ex left but they have slowed down now as I seem so much better and I’m currently NED.
Anyway I’ll shut up again!! I’m terrible once I get going!!
Take care all xx
I’ve decided if I make it to 2012 I’ll be at those Olympics whatever it costs but know this is unlikely! Is there anywhere where we can see what have been discovered over the last few years that may lead to an eventual cure?
I hope you don’t mind me posting here. I have been following this thread for some time and wanted to let you know that JaneRA is correct - you have many allies among women with primaries and I would hope that we could operate collectively in trying to get some essential changes made to the way the world is handling this disease.
Prima magazine’s blurb on this despicable Women Of Courage fiasco is worth a look. If you google up Prima you will find a link to it on the homepage. Aside from complaints made to Breakthrough, Prima need a stiff talking to. The email address for the woman at the helm of this nonsense is noted at the bottom of the article explaining how to submit nominations.
If it is any comfort you will note that the closing date for this stupidity was originally 4th May. It has now been extended to 11th May. Clearly they were not getting enough applications because, I hope, people are so nauseated by the concept of it.
What truly sickens me is the idea that the punters get to vote for their favourite nominee.
I with you all on this one and as Msmolly says this patronising, insulting competition affects everyone with BC. I cannot believe that someone would want either to win or to be nominated for this freak show. Its another attempt at trying to coerce anyone who has cancer into shutting up moaning and smile your way through the pain, anguish and fear just so everyone else feels a whole lot better. It also lets the powers that be off the hook in terms of pushing for more research to understand the cause and find an effective treatment for all cancers. What a load of b*llsh*t. Cancer is horrible and Joe Public needs to face up to it, not be protected by shallow, crass journalism that makes it almost seem an honour to have cancer so you can show the world just what you are made of! It stinks!
BTW - just done a bit of internet research, this Breakhrough +Prima thing has been going on for a while. Just in case any of the women who have received this award are on this website…noone of this is meant offend anyone who received this, all I wanted when I wrote to Breakthrough is for them to focus on research and new treatments, not comparing one persons courage to another, and I can see from looking at these women’s profiles that they are the same and these awards came out of the blue,
In 2006 the “bravest woman in the UK” won a washing machine.
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Good point Kathy, I saw last year’s winner had sadly died.
Thanks for letting us know about the Prima page msmolly.
I shall complain to Breakthrough and copy in Prima.
If Jennywren or Marilf are reading this… is this the award our friend Jelly (Janet) won a few years ago now? I think she was one of the group nominated?
AnneS…I was at the hospital having a bisphosphonate infusion when we all got news the UK had been awarded the Olympics…I said how great and something to look forward to before remembering where I was and why I was there… I felt a complete fool, felt I was counting my chickens.
Belinda…x
Belinda, just as I got to your post I thought of Janet. Yes, she won this award in 2005 or 6. I’m sure white goods were part of her prize (so very useful when facing a terminal illness). She was a reluctant winner - so much so that she donated money from her prize toward the very first Unhealthy Living Day we organised in Coventry. I think she paid for our dinner bill. She herself was too ill by then to attend. She died very shortly after her 40th birthday, leaving a husband and very young children.
The media will be well on their way to preparing copy for September/October issues now. So keep your eyes peeled every one, and we can maybe try and get ahead of the game this year and make our views known. It’s a start.
Jennyx
Re magazines planning for Pink October - I wonder whether we should write to the various magazines now to let them know how women with breast cancer actually feel about the way it is covered at the moment and suggesting different angles for their copy. If Woman’s Weekly devoted a page a week to a woman who had actually died and told her story do you think people might wake up to the fact that this is not a fluffy pink curable illness but an ugly, hard and cruel disease that robs families of mothers, sisters, aunties and daughters as well as strips out our friends who happen to have been on the wrong side of the statistics.
Deirdre
Good idea Deirdre…I think we should just keep the ideas flowing…I’m finding this whole thread really energising and such a great way for taking our sadness, anger and frustartion into something which might start to achieve change.
Jane
I took it upon myself on Friday to leave a message on the answer phones of a couple of people who helped me last year.
When I hear I will let you know. I think we are investing our frustrations in the right direction.
Love Debsxxx
I can’t tell you how much I better I feel after venting my fears and frustrations on this thread including my frustrations at myself being positive by force of habit!! We need to somehow show the world that we are ordirnary,grumpy,cheerful.sad,gormless(!),humorous,dull,interesting,fashionable,frumpy(not meaning to offend anyone!!),angry,joyous women whom you would pass by in the street and not take a second glance at but we are dying and we need a cure not bravery awards! I used to take an occasional glance at the secondaries thread when I first came on this site in 2003 and just imagined that people on this thread would be near to death and look like it - never dreamed I would be looking as well as I know I look. I don’t want to have to resign from life at some point just because I’m dying. I don’t want to have to hide my fears and everyday struggles just because it’s uncomfortable to people. I’m doing so many pleasurable things at the moment to try and take my mind off the unpleasant things bound to come at some point. I was embarrassed to be so weak at ten-pin bowling the other night and longed to say well it’s not bad for an arm that’s had so many needles stuck in it over the past 6 years but of course kept quiet. I’m my own worst enemy but I feel a sea change in me with this thread. Keep it coming ladies!!
Anne xx
AnneS…picking up on your message…I think, like you, I don’t, won’t say I can’t do something because of the cancer…I will say I can’t do something 'cos of the treatment I’m having…which is actually true, years of hormonals and an early chemically induced menopause have caused me problems rather than, so far, the cancer. I put make-up on to go to the recycling bin at the bottom of my garden these days. 
I’ve been doing this ever since my diagnosis…it’s my defence mechanism, my don’t write me off I’m not finished yet.
I read On death and dying by Elisabeth Kubler Ross when I was first diagnosed and the author was puzzled by a patient who wore more make up as she went on…I could see perfectly where the patient was coming from but Kubler Ross couldn’t. I’m not in denial but I’m not ready, don’t think this will change, to divulge much to others…apart from my immediate family.
Jenny…yes I thought it was Jelly…I remember the pic she shared with us of her beautiful children, those big blue eyes.
Deidre and Jane…there was a thread on the forums last year, don’t know if you saw it, but someone had complained about a ‘gloomy’ story (about a woman with mets) a magazine had featured last October or it may even have been last Christmas? Some replies recommended complaining to the editor.
I think it was Good Housekeeping that had 4 women featured, 3 well and one with secondaries last October…other mags seemed to go with this ratio.
x
I am so angry and feel totally betrayed by what I have just read. A medal for bravery – how patronising. I am not read up on all the ins and outs of where the funding for breast cancer comes but if that charity thinks they are progressing a cure for breast cancer by awarding a medal for bravery they can stick it up their arses as far as I’m concerned and I think we should tell them.
How about a campaign for funding drop in clinics where women can go if they feel a lump in their breasts? And how about a realistic analysis of “well a few weeks won’t make any difference” as I’m sure we have all heard on our journey of weeks and months waiting for treatment to start.
There is a big difference between ordinary people carrying a bag or wearing a pin on their lapel showing their support and understanding of bc, which is brilliant - and the drug companies analysing how much profit they can make out of their investment. And f……. politicians who just want to be seen to be pink.
Anne xx
Very thought provoking thread.