Girls, make sure you get a copy of The Sun on Wednesday. There will be an article in it featuring six lovely ladies who have all come through this horrendous disease. I am one of the ladies who took part in the photoshoot a few weeks ago and the idea is that it raises awareness of different symptoms of breast cancer. Should be a really good article as it will show how fab you can look !!!
Vez xx
I for one shall get Wednesday Sun Vez, as yesterdays You magazine had five breast cancer sufferers who didn’t have such happy endings.
As a primary patient i need to read about people who are living well after a diagnosis,as i’m having a lot of dark thoughts at the moment which i’m hoping is only due to undergoing chemo.
Tracey
Tracey …I saw that you magazine and it diodnt fill me with much confidence as they all had recurrences …as I am only ten months from DX it wasnt waht i was hoping to read when i saw the front cover !!Vez… I unfortunately have never read the Sun and never will for reasons private to me …wish you could have chosen another paper .I will get someone to photo copy it for me .that,s not reading the actual paper ,is it ??
xxxxxxxxx
who publishes you magazine - is it the mail by any chance?
Mole
just looked it up and I thought it was Ok (you mag). I want it known that breast cancer can spread and that you can look as if you are Ok even though you have brain tumours etc, because we need to keep researching it and keep it in the public eye. I know it makes people more anxious but it’s no good pretending it’s not a serious disease.
Mole
I think its excellent to have stories that tell the truth. We can’t always have lived happily ever after stories as we all know.
Its good to have a balance.
I get fed up with the ‘positive’ brigade, when i have had friends and family who have died of this and friends who have secondaries and will probably die in the next few years.
However its good to read of people doing well 5plus years since DX. I remember going to a support group whilst going through chemo, amazingly everyone who had signed this sigining in sheet where you had to put how many years you were since DX, everyone was 6yrs plus. I felt a surge of hope from looking at that. Then i wondered how they cope with anyone who isn’t so fortunate.
I wont read the article either as being a True LFC supporter and scouser that paper isnt welcome round here since Hillsborough and their slander of us.
Thanks though for taking part in it its good to tell our BC journeys and i know a lot of ladies on here will benefit from it.
Rx
I have just done some publicity for Cancer Research UK which appeared in our local paper and, for a change, it focused on secondaries.
It’s not all doom and gloom - I had 10 good years of remission and have now lived with secondaries for the past 4 years. Unfortunately for some of us this is our reality and anyway that I can of highlighting the signs and symptoms of it I will do as every single friend I have within our area who has secondaries (including me) were fobbed off initially at their surgery because the alarm bells just didn’t register for the GPs.
It is good that more publicity is appearing about secondary breast acncer but it strikes me that it is just as sanitised as media representations of primary breast cancer,. The focus is on people who live a long tme before recurrence and those who live a long time with secondaries. It all sounds like a very jolly expereince,as the smiling healthy looking youthful women tell us. Where are the facts about those who will die very quickly after secondary diagnosis, of the young lives torn apart, of the older lives cut short, of the suffering as treatment after treatment fails for many women. And actually in my experience continuous treatment for breast cancer is horrid. Where in the hype is that straightforward statistic that the average survival with mets is 2-3 and half years. Why does eveything have to be airbushed and sanitised. I think people with breast cancer learn each in our own ways to live with whatever is thrown at us, but it is in the main not pleasant stuff, it’s vile, and many of us don’t see having breast cancer, primary or secondary, as an opportunity for practicing our life skills or getting a new haircut.
And highlighting the symptoms of secondaries won’t save any lives…though it will mean that women know for longer they are going to die…good for the stats I suppose.
Jane
I know it won’t necessarily save lives by highlighting the symptoms but GPs need to have that knowledge so that they can refer quicker than is sometimes the case at the moment. If I’d have been referred when I first presented it probably would have meant that my spine wouldn’t have fractured and maybe the tumours wouldn’t have been in all of my vertabrae - who knows?
I sometimes think we’re dammed if we talk about the better times living with secondaries and we’re also sometimes dammed if we look at the negatives - never a happy medium!
Hi pinkdove
Of course you’re right…sorry I was grumppy earlier. The best GP’s are pro active and creative about identifying possible symptoms…not just of secondary bc but of other conditions. In the case of sceondaries of the bone yes I know other cases similar to yours where a GP did not pick up on symptoms…and should have done.
Thinking about the whole area of what the secondary task force should be campaigning for though…it seeems to me that it is dithering round the edges of what matters…the one thing which really matters is treatment for metasatic disease…still woefully poor…yes some people are living a long time with mets but many aren’t. Death rates from breast cancer are reducing by a couple of hundred each year but this is not good enough…for many after a mets diagnosis there is pretty rapid progression with chemotherapy barely holding cancer for a few months at a time…we need to talk about these facts instead of burying them in exagerrated feel good stuff… Great that many are living longer but what about those who aren’t…?
I don’t know why there is a need to see ‘positives’ in living with an incurable disease… it’s a distraction.
Jane
Hi Vez,
I don’t usully buy the Sun but will certainly make an exception for tomorrow! I’d be interested to know how you first got involved with doing the article as I would love to do something like that,
Kelly
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Hi Jane
I can understand where you’re coming from and, being on the advisory group of the taskforce I can tell you that there are a lot of things that BCC are working towards and I don’t believe they are dithering around the edges.
No, you’re not grumpy Jane and I think I know where you’re coming from. I agree that for some people there are no positives and I felt like that 2 years ago when I was really ill. I found it really hard to be upbeat and I couldn’t cope with people being ‘positive’ when I felt so ill.
Take care Jane as I value your openness.
C
x
Hi Pinkdove
Tell me one thing the taskforce has done to push for research or improved treatment for mets?
Jane
Hi Jane
Have pm’d you.
I admire you for your courage in telling/showing your story,but sorry that paper is not allowed in my house and I am an Everton supporter.Sorry for bringing football into this but in our city it is close to our hearts.
Take Care
Mary
xx
Mary …my sentiments entirely .that rag is not allowed in my life ! but would really have liked to see the article !!Shame x
Hi everyone
thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/woman/article1838688.ece
will take you straight to the article
Best wishes
Ann
Vezza
Just wanted to say hope it’s a true representation as this paper has been far from honest in the past (I am the 4th on here from Liverpool, and we will never forgive or forget the torment this paper caused our city after the Hillsborough disaster)
Best wishes
Irene