To be angry at the TV/film/adverts portrayal of cancer.

[Thisvehicleisreversing]

The whole 'fuck you cancer' 'let's fight together' and pictures of attractive women with hair loss who are ballsy and glamourous with loads of friends around them taking part in fun-runs and coffee mornings.

Cancer isn't like that for everyone. My mum has lung cancer. On paper she's been very lucky, she flew through the first 2 loads of chemo and radiotherapy shrinking the tumour incredibly. Doctors have told her she should be dead by now but the chemo keeps on working.

She should have been one of the glamourous advert ladies, she still looked amazing, she fought cancer and was doing great.

So why was it that after a stomach bug in April she was too scared to leave the house? Stopped eating properly and lost 4 stone?

Cancer scared her. She thought this time it was going to be the end.

The chemo this time has really knocked her back. The weight loss and muscle wasting from not leaving the house has meant she's too weak to take the chemo well. She's lost her hair this time, she's exhausted, crying constantly and pushing her family away. She pretends her grandchildren don't exist because it makes it easier for her to deal with.

She's a shell of the woman she once was.

She's not the lady on the advert shouting in the camera, she's not one of the happy people wearing pink fairy wings. She's another person fighting cancer quietly, not wanting to be a nuisance, getting on with her own fight.

These adverts undoubtedly work in raising funds for incredible charities but please don't forget that cancer is a sickening, soul destroying disease. It's not all fun runs and feather boas.

butchered, poisoned and burned

Spot on description there. Then you have to live with the fear that if one tiny cell has been missed, and can come back, and worse than before.

Can I just add a massive YY to this and a huge to everyone who has shared their personal story.

And to add another thing that pees me off even more: when the first damn thing that people ask about a cancer sufferer is 'Did s/he smoke? Drink? Eat lots of saturated fat? How old is she?' You can see people's minds going straight to 'What is the EXPLANATION? It must be THEIR FAULT!'

I can't count the number of times I have told people that my Mum never smoked, barely drinks, eats the healthiest diet of anyone I know... and still got breast cancer.

It's hurtful and insensitive in the extreme to ask those questions - it's a kind of victim-blaming. Many people have cancer because of shitty bad luck - not lifestyle decisions. I guess some people don't want to accept that those of us who are here and healthy are so because we are incredibly fortunate.

There is one and only one reason why someone gets breast cancer. That is having breasts. I include male sufferers who obviously have tissue in that area and can, rarely, develop bx.

YANBU at all.

A friend of mine with young DC found out recently that she has incurable cancer - she'd originally been told her symptoms were something minor. She's going through palliative treatment and is suffering masses of side effects. I've always hated the 'fight' analogy, and I hate it even more now.

There's a great book about the cult of positivity, including around breast cancer by Barbara Ehrenreich called 'Smile or Die'. She had breast cancer and found she couldn't talk about how she felt because others expected her to be 'brave' or smile through it.