to have such a strong reaction to this advert for cancer?

[FarleyD]

I'm talking about the advert where people throw insults around, eg there's a little girl saying "you make me sick", someone else saying "cancer you twat", someone saying "we're going to get you" etc.

I don't watch much tv, and adverts barely register on my radar. I'm suprised at the strength of my reaction to this ad. I don't know what it is about it but it almost makes me feel queasy. Maybe it's the fact that the ad suggests the power is in our hands to "fight" this pernicious disease. It just doesn't sit right with me.

Does anyone else feel this way? Can anyone explain why I feel like this?! And aibu?

Agree with expat that genetics research should be the way forward and hopefully we will see more developments in this area in the future.

What really gets on my goat is that Cancer Research, roughly every 3 months, trots out the same rubbish about how being overweight, or drinking wine, or eating unhealthily causes cancer. In about 30% of cases that may be a factor but please crack on and work out what is causing cancer in the other 70%! We all know we should live a healthy life but from what I have seen that is no magic bullet. I just feel like like the money needs to be spent in other areas and I feel like we are not seeing much progress despite the billions going to 'research'

I agree, Delatron! Also there needs be more focus on relapsed cancers and secondary cancers. Often, the genetics of these leave those afflicted with shockingly low prognoses as they fail to respond to treatment. The disease has learned and mutated to withstand it. Viruses can do that, too, but of course, this is oneself, not a foreign invader.

One of the "good" things about a cancer diagnosis (round here at least. It may be different in other areas) is the amount of support you get.

My DH got spiritual healing, massage, offers of counselling -- there's a local cancer centre where this is all free. I got free counselling once a week for 9 months, was offered massage, aromatherapy. This is all paid for by donations. Our cancer centre is lovely, with beautiful rooms, lights, furniture. Fresh flowers. We were cherished. But it left me feeling a bit weird.

Because there are loads of other illnesses just as deadly, just as unpleasant, where there's no help of any sort outside of strictly medical treatment. People seem to be more willing to donate to cancer services than less well known or well publicised diseases.

Agree expat. I'm shocked at how little money is sent on secondary cancer and also the more 'rare' cancers. Despite being a breast cancer sufferer I do think money is skewered towards this cancer, leaving other cancers short of funding.

The whole 'awareness' thing pisses me off. I think you would've had to be living in a cave not to be aware of cancer. Enough already!

My husbands cancer is one that has no known cause. Smoking can be a factor, but he has never smoked; he is naturally skinny, so not weight related and has always lead a fairly healthy lifestyle. It's just one of those things.

Last time he went in for treatment we had a long conversation with the cancer nurse about cancer in general. One of the things she said was that childhood cancers can be more aggressive because young bodies are producing new cells much more quickly than older bodies. Bad cells as well as good ones. Some cancers in older people can be much slower growing.

We got none of that, but then, my child's cancer had one of the worst protocols known to all cancer. Her protocol, which began 4 days after she was diagnosed as she was sceptic when she went in, then needed bone marrow aspiration and a Hickman line installed for the chemo, was 4 rounds, back to back. 7-10 days solid, in-patient, of 3-4 chemo drugs, all designed to annihilate the granulocytes, meaning strict iso. Then she would be neutropaenic, sometimes for over a month, locked up in strict iso and unable to take GSC-F because it causes rapid blood cell production, like a red flag to the bull that is leukaemia. As soon as the counts rose enough, more chemo.

Poor little soul didn't even get to take advantage of any perks for most of it .

Brain cancers in particular, Dela, so little funding, and yet, they are not particularly rare and common enough as secondary cancers. It's shocking and sad.

She got GCS-F once during her chemo rounds, as the cytogenetics came back showing that, whilst she was in morphological remission and one of her mutations was gone, the FLT3 was still there. So the plan was to give her the GCS-F along side the second round, to take out the new blood cells, too. It worked, but peritonitis nearly killed her and I know of someone else's teen daughter with the same form of leukaemia who did not survive that course of treatment, her bowel burst (because of course the chemo causes the bowel wall to become paper thin) and she died of septicaemia .

I'm so glad this was posted. I HATE this ad, it is so stupid to suggest 'cancer' might be 'scared'.
When my Mum was diagnosed she was determined to fight, she was the strongest person I have ever known.
Meant nothing.
Thank you other posters for putting into words what I feel about this ad. Might complain actually, or is that over reacting?
(about ad btw)

Yes was thinking brain tumours expat, I remember signing the petition that went round mumsnet a while ago as I had no idea that area was so underfunded.

There should be some sort of campaign for more equal funding. Am veering a bit off topic here but it is shocking and unacceptable.

My brother had rare and aggressive cancer when he was 15. Ewings sarcoma. He fought. We all fought like fuck. Whoever says you don't fight is misunderstanding the word. You fight your mindset, you fight against the doom and fear that tries to fill ever pore of you, you fight to stay mentally and emotionally with it whilst all hell is breaking loose on your body.
It's right that the body becomes the battleground but there is so much more to the fight than that.
I witnessed, as a terrified 20 year old, a dr telling my poor brother that his cancer was inoperable and too advanced to stop it. I watched my parents turn to stone in a strange living grief. We had to fight or we would've fallen apart.
And yes, I fucking love that advert because cancer is a twat and deserves to be beaten.
We still have wobbly days where even the memory of that time emotionally overcomes us, I find it very hard sometimes but in addition to the battles my brother and parents face, I know my personal fight is not to let that despicable disease ruin our lives any longer.
My brother- miraculously- beat it. That was 11 years ago. Who knows what will happen in the future? All I know is we all fought and we fought alongside the wonderful, wonderful NHS that saved us.

I don't think it is over-reacting to complain scrablet. Cancer Research have form for this. Wasn't their last campaign featuring pictures of smiley women saying 'Lucy wasn't going to let cancer beat her' FFS how can they get it SO wrong every time. They end up insulting everyone with cancer and everyone who has watched a loved one go through it.

We 'fought', too, Smiling. And I'm so glad your brother survived because most with relapsed Ewing's Sarcoma do not. But it hasn't anything to do with fighting. My little girl was so strong. She never complained. She bore her illness and its horrendous treatment with calm and dignity.

She died. She did not 'lose' her 'fight', she succumbed to her disease.

She was 9.

'We had to fight or we would've fallen apart.'

EVERYONE does! I haven't met a parent alive who hasn't. I lived on RedBull and ProPlus and dropped over 2st.

There was nothing to be beaten, her cancer wasn't an extra-terrestrial enemy, it was a fundamental flew of her own genetics at a profoundly molecular level we do not understand that caused her bone marrow to fail, and was not curable with chemo and even with successful stem cell/bone marrow transplant has a terrible OS rate.

Less than two months after she died, 2 other girls with her disease in that unit died from it. We were there 7 months and 29 days, came to know 4 girls with the disease. 8 months later, one 1 is still alive.

Was it from not 'fighting' that they didn't 'beat' it, their families didn't 'fight', they 'fell apart'? No, AML in paeds is a shit, aggressive form of leukaemia that is highly resistant to treatment in many cases and has a huge or certain relapse risk in others.

I completely resent the idea that my child didn't 'fight'.

And I am so desperately sorry to hear that. There are no words are there? None.
All I hope is one day that nobody will ever have to go through this. I would do anything. I often begged to 'god' to swap places with him. I don't know exactly what you're going through, I only know what we went through and the pain if that still strikes.
I'm not going to give you flowers, it won't be enough. I just want you to know that I will think of your family now - along with our others we knew- when I do whatever tiny thing I can that may make a difference somehow. Xxx

It is all down to luck. You could roll over and say 'take me now cancer' and survive. You could (as many do) fight, fight and be one of the LUCKY ones.

So sorry for your loss expat. I followed your threads and she sounded like an amazing brave, beautiful girl. Life is so unfair sometimes x

I hate the advert and like others I hate the whole rhetoric of cancer as a 'battle' that can be won if you fight hard enough. My dad died of cancer last year and he specifically asked that their be no references to "long battles" at his funeral.

The advert is all a bit brass eye (although she does actually say prat not twat) - it's cancer as viewed by some vacuous tosser ad executive. Boke.

I've actually cancelled my direct debit to cruk.

Delatron- it's right. It is. My brother often feels quite guilty that he was fortunate enough to survive whilst others didn't.
I think I'm going to go now because this has been quite triggering ( my own choice to come on here I know) and I feel a bit panicky.
My thoughts of empathy and love to all those who have been affected by this awful, dreadful illness.

It is, Dela. A lot of times it's pure luck. Our friends in the unit, the hand their baby son was dealt was DIPG, a form of glioma/brain cancer for which there is no known treatment. He died at 19 months of age. If there were a fight to be fought, his parents tried to find it for him.

Sheer shit luck. That's what it was.

Pancreatic cancer? Most of them die and die soon. No known lifestyle factors contribute to it. It's just shit luck.

I could go on and one.

Smiling, I think fighting is an unfortunate term when a disease kills someone. People can 'fight' and take all the awful treatments that they can but still die. It's not fair, and not about how hard you fight.

You don't beat this disease.
You either survive it or you don't.
Of course having a positive attitude is helpful to the individual's mindset, and helps the surrounding people.
But cancer is not a living entity which chooses someone and then rubs its hands together in glee if that person does not survive.
Wish it was, wish we could 'kick its butt'.
It does not exist like that...

Oh smiling, sorry this thread has made you panicky. It is wonderful to hear about those that survive, when the odds are stacked against them. It is nice to hear positive stories and I'm so pleased your brother is well.

It shows that this advert evokes different responses for us all, due to our different experiences of cancer.

I do think the ad is correct in it's intended message that collectively we have to fight cancer, via money, for research... that's the FIGHT. The only one that might ever make a difference.

But I do think it's poorly done as it comes across as though it's down to the individual 'pysching cancer out', which of course it isn't.

Whether you live or die is rarely down to something you've done or not done, but luck. (Even the man who claimed to have beaten cancer by changing his diet radically, at best he stumbled on something that might have made a difference, but what exactly? I'd bet even he doesn't eactly know)

Aside from that, most people 'fight' in that they don't simply roll over and die at a positive diagnosis. For my MIL, fighting was getting up in the morning, having Drs look at her privates (cancer of the vulva primarily - horrendous), carrying on, smiling. For my friend, fighting was running marathons, doing crazy things to raise money, trying everything there was to try (from spiritual to eating odd sludge from somewhere or other). It made no difference in either case, but they were both 'fighters', as are the people who survive and live in it's shadow.

I think sometimes people like to believe that it is a fight because that narrative scares them less. Actually like most bad things that happen in a life it's just random and arbitrary and doesn't have anything to do with deserving it or not, or fighting or not. That means acknowledging the fundamental uncertainty of life and that's scarier perhaps?