Fecking FB. 
Tbh, I'm a bit irrational about it, having been touched signifcantly by BC recently, so my view may be skewed, but how on earth is I like it on the doorknob going to raise awareness in any mindful manner?
There's a photo of lemons in an egg box with clues to changes in breast tissue that are worth looking out for. Now that's worth sharing.
And raising money by running, cakes, whatever - worthwhile as well.
But stuppid inane posts? Meh.Wanky.
AIBU?
Please or to access all these features
Please
or
to access all these features
AIBU?
to get naffed off with the raising breast cancer awareness frippery?
108 replies
ChaosTrulyReigns · 18/10/2013 18:05
OP posts:
HepsibubbleCauldronToad ·
18/10/2013 19:32
Cunty I've had no wine, but still managed to say what I felt in between the expletives..
TondelayoSchwarzkopf ·
18/10/2013 19:47
Secondly - breast cancer has been linked to things like being overweight and drinking too much. Why is that hardly ever mentioned?
Quoted for truth - that's why the 'girls night in' Cancer Research fundraiser makes me 
Scarlet so sorry about your mum 
my mum also has had it.
The point is not that BC is not a serious issue that damages many lives but the way the fundraising and 'awareness' is communicated and managed. Why is it just about generic 'awareness' and not specific messages that treat the audience intelligently
a) there are many different types of breast cancer
b) checking your breasts and 'being aware' is not necessarily the best way to get an early diagnosis - in fact over-diagnosis and over-treatment is also an issue.
c) the 'pinkification' of BC is patronising and misguided
d) many breast cancers primarily affect post-menopausal women but they rarely are the target or subject of Breast Cancer Awareness month
e) there have been many advances in breast cancer diagnosis and treatment and understanding of these would make much more interesting reading - and better communicate how important research funding is - than silly Facebook games
f) as above the biggest thing you can do in lowering your risk factor is cutting back on booze - it's the one environmental factor that is backed up by the evidence
TondelayoSchwarzkopf ·
18/10/2013 20:55
to you and your mum Scarlet that is so hard to live with from such a young age.
FrightRider ·
18/10/2013 21:19
This reply has been deleted
Message withdrawn at poster's request.
CuppaTeaForTheBigFella ·
18/10/2013 21:27
But it's not harming anyone is it, and tbf it's made the OP start a thread, and gain responses, so therefore we are all talking about it.
And fwiw I lost my Mum to breast cancer, whilst she was in her forties 
She wasn't overweight, she didn'tsmoke, she hardly drank, and she did exercise regularly!!!
for you and your Mum scarlet
QuintessentialShadows ·
18/10/2013 21:31
See, I always used to share these kinds of statuses, in empathy with my friend. It meant a lot to her that these types of statuses were shared.
But she is dead now. She passed away 2 weeks ago, leaving behind 3 children. (I posted a lot about her, and was really distressed at the beginning of the month)
I am all for raising awareness, but wont be sharing any dumb statuses any more. Most people have no clue, and by telling them what it means, they just go
TondelayoSchwarzkopf ·
18/10/2013 22:00
So so so sorry I did not mean to imply BC is anyone's fault - I actually KNOW the opposite - the biggest risk factors are your age, your sex and your family history.
The so called 'preventative measures' work to some extent for post menopausal women who have hormone positive cancers. The real killers are the inflammatory, the lobular, the hormone negative and the Herceptin positive, the triple negative and the cancers in younger women
Absolutely.
So sorry if my point about alcohol came across that way. I meant it in the sense that THERE IS ALMOST NOTHING YOU CAN DO TO PREVENT IT - having a very low alcohol intake is the only known measure and that is with certain types of less aggressive cancers as thegreylady says above.
MrsDeVere ·
18/10/2013 22:12
This reply has been deleted
Message withdrawn at poster's request.
RenterNomad ·
18/10/2013 22:26
With regard to risk factors, it's a very hard thing to judge: whether the risk factors can be taken seriously, or whether they are kind of a waste of time, given how many people develop cancers without apparent massive risk factors.
I have a dear school friend who "defied" all those indicators, (she drinks very moderately indeed, eats healthily, exercises, lives well in general, blah, blah, blah), and got breast cancer in her mid-thirties, so it is definitely worth saying that all these chances and probabilities are on very small numbers (though, over the world's population, of course, the numbers are still huge), and there are so many, many tiny factors at work, including environment, that "factors" can, indeed, end up seemingly meaningless.
It's also well worth remembering that past generations died younger, so there may well be genetic factors - which are very important - in cancers, which never "ripened" or were diagnosed. (In my grandmother's case, she was suffering severe Alzheimer's at the end, so it seemed to be considered almost irrelevant that she had skin cancer 
. As she was already massively distressed, day to day, and was not expected to last long enough, it was considered pointless to treat the skin cancer, and I don't imagine it will have been recorded as the cause of her death).
Sorry, that was a bit morbid. All of your stories were told rather less brutally than mine! 
Sorry we are all in this together, though.
P.S. My friend lives on the Continent, so they reacted very immediately and aggressively to the breast cancer, so she has got a brilliant prognosis. 
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