AIBU to feel really strongly about the new Cancer Research UK ad

[Gattasyl]

I keep hearing it on the radio and it's really starting to annoy the c*ap out of me. I think to keep putting the emphasis on cancer as a battle, as something you can win if you fight hard enough is just unfair and untrue and to be honest misleading.
This new one says 'so and so is a cancer fighter by night' because she's running the marathon...' I don't know... I find it really offensive towards people who have not 'beaten' the disease! AIBU??

Yanbu, have hated the "cancer is a battle" trope for years.

My DH detests any reference to "battling" cancer and has said that he'll come back and haunt anyone who refers to him as "having lost his brave battle". Because lose it he will. But not because he's some sort of coward who wasn't prepared to come out fighting. Instead, it's going to kill him because that's what bastard terminal cancer does.

Sunny - I am well aware cancer is a disease,it was a term of phrase,to express how I feel about it

I'm luckily unaffected by cancer- some of these posts are devastating and have really touched my heartstrings.
The "battle" ads can FTFO they are so twee. I just imagine a group of 80's wide boy ad execs in shiny suits having the advert idea then taking themselves off to the pub for smug celebrations

The terminology doesn't bother me. I have heard it used with other illnesses and diseases. People often refer to being 'fighting fit'.

My DF had terminal lung cancer. We nursed him at home as much as possible. It was the most horrendous time of my life.

I just can't get upset about the words other people may or may not use to describe what happened because nothing could make that time worse. Nothing can make living without him hurt more.

And if some 'battle' words or imagery encourages one more person to fundraise then, for me, it is totally worth it. Ditto any emotional verging on the mawkish advert. I don't care what the cancer charities feel they need to do to keep their profile high and to raise funds. All I care about is that they do remain high profile because then they are more likely to attract funds and that just might make the difference to treatment in the future.

My mil once proclaimed that she was sure she wouldn't get cancer as it wasn't 'in' her family and she lived a healthy lifestyle. My DM was having chemo at the time. I'm still lost for words at that one.

Re the battle analogy, I totally agree, but it is quite an ingrained one. Sometimes a tough experience does feel like a battle against something, and to some people it helps to think of it in those terms. To my DM, her chances were exceedingly, exceedingly slim, and to go through a bone marrow transplant was a very big deal and a very big gamble. Nobody would have blamed her for opting for palliative care at that point. Deciding to go ahead felt to her like a brave decision, and she certainly saw it as entering a battle. That isn't to say that opting against a BMT wouldn't have been brave - it would too. But equally, it doesn't seem right to deny someone their own particular way of coping with an awful situation and unbearably painful treatment. IMO, when all your options are shit, every choice is brave in its own way, and 'winning' has nothing to do with whether you die or not. Totally agreed that the cancer charities should shut the fuck up about battles, though. How dare they presume how cancer sufferers should feel and act?

Does anyone think we should send the link to this thread to Cancer Research UK?

Good for you. CRUK has, until recently, a big meeting in Edinburgh last week with friends of mine present, been largely funding particular adult cancers. Only 4% of what was raised went into paediatric cancer, that is not even touching brain cancer.

And so yeah, their fucking ads bug the shit out me and make me angry and sad. But hey ho, I am used to that. My then 8-year-old girl was treated with decades old drugs that ended up being a major factor in her death, because her cancer is not the more typical leukaemia of childhood. I have seen CRUK ads featuring skipping bald children and headlines about how now 'childhood leukaemia' is 90% curable. Really? 25% of those with 'childhood leukaemia' have AML. It's OS is 50%. In part because so little funding has been allocated for this form of paediatric cancer.

And today is the 9th anniversary of the death of my friend's daughter's death, herself an MNer. She died of that so-called 'good' leukaemia.

Neither of those girls grew up, drove a car, had a job, went to college, or anything else.

I'm really fed up of this being the result of a 'lost battle' because I think that's lazy and there's a need to shift focus to raise cash into research and treatment for this disease.

And yeah, I'm one of those working on it.

zoe, my daughter had an allogenic BMT for treatment of blood cancer. Having seen it, if I were faced with the same decision, even now, I would decline. And anyone who claimed I didn't want to live, was denying my kids this or that, blah blah blah I really couldn't be arsed with, other than to tell them to go fuck themselves. Allogenic stem cell transplants are a point of pure desperation to treat blood cancer. I know that now.

'My mil once proclaimed that she was sure she wouldn't get cancer as it wasn't 'in' her family and she lived a healthy lifestyle. My DM was having chemo at the time. I'm still lost for words at that one.'

You see that here a lot, this idea that cancer is the result of lifestyle choice and if you just 'be good', you won't get it. Patently untrue.

A positive attitude has been shown to have a detrimental effect on the out comes for cancer, and other serious illnesses.

I have always hated the language used around cancer. It isn't an invading pathogen, it is part of your own body. All this talk about battles and fighting is stupid and grating.

YANBU. I haven't seen the ad but I hate the battle with cancer analogy, and the whole personification of cancer which I don't understand. I was reading in Metro this morning that Anne Kirkbride has been put forward for some award or other 'four months after losing her battle with cancer'. I was fuming about it - she didn't lose her fight with cancer, she died of a horrible disease.

The city I live in held a march a few months ago called 'Stand up to cancer'. I don't know if it's a national thing, or just happened here. I happened across it when I was in town. Young children were marching along gleefully shouting 'Stand up to cancer' as if cancer is some playground bully and if 'we' join together 'we' can somehow defeat it collectively. Which also implies that those who allow themselves to be bullied are lying down and taking it. I find it all very strange.

"Cancer's a bastard" you see there it goes again! No cancer is not a 'bastard' it is a disease.

It can help people to personify their disease or illness. I get what you're saying though.

YANBU..... I used to have to steer my very young daughter away from cancer linked posters and adverts when she had cancer because of the terminology they used to use.

I got told to 'be positive'. There could not have been a more positive person than my Aillidh. She was the sunniest, happiest child. And I was as positive as possible when a person is separated from her family and thrown into an intensive caring role with a life-threateningly ill child.

I never believed she would die. Nearly three years on, I still can't fully believe it.

It makes fuck all difference. What about young children? Babies? How can they 'be positive', some of them don't even know how to speak.

Yanbu. It's offensive. To people suffering.

Everyone copes differently. How sufferers and their families get through is their own business.

However, personally, I find the wide spread espousal of one type of language in relation to cancer popularised by certain charities/organisations offensive and irritating. Why should one way of speaking about cancer become the 'acceptable' face of the disease? Why should the 'fighting' and 'battling' terminology be pushed but 'submitting' and 'accepting' not be?

I have always tried to see the illness as a journey. We prepare as best we can but things will happen that we can never foresee.

As for the ads that pull on the heartstrings. I don't dislike them in the same way but they have an horrific triggering effect for me. I have to switch them off immediately.

expat , I remember your threads about your beautiful, dear daughter.
to all who live their lives on this road.

And yes, the relentless sodding 'positivity'. It made absolutely no difference.

I've realised my first sentence sounds a bit blunt. I guess I meant how they deal with it personally. That there is a 'right' way and a 'wrong' way to deal with your emotions around cancer just seems absolutely ridiculous.

YANBU. It may be 'just a phrase' but it is harmful.

My DM really bought into the whole battle imagery when she was diagnosed with her second cancer. She kept saying she would 'fight it' and she wouldn't 'give up'. She said those things because she knew that 'fighting' was expected of her. In reality, her cancer was advanced when it was discovered, and had already metastasised. The chances of her 'beating' this particular cancer were minuscule but she was taken in by the belief that her positive thinking could get her through it. For me, that was actually one of the saddest aspects of her illness: that she never reached a point where she could start trying to come to terms with her impending death. She 'fought' like a fucking gladiator and it made no difference whatsoever.

In contrast, my dad had no chance to start 'fighting' his cancer, because by the time it was rife in his brain, he was incapable of understanding that he even had cancer.

When I hear others being congratulated on beating their cancers, it hurts. Of course, I am glad for them that their cancer has been successfully treated, but it hurts because to me, the logical inference is that my parents didn't try hard enough. Or try at all.

I am very sorry to read so many sad experiences described here. My heart goes out to those of you who are living with cancer, to those whose loved ones have cancer, and to those who have lost loved ones to this disease.

People who 'fight' cancer die just the same as those who don't 'fight'.

There is some research to show people who 'fight' tend to be more positive about how they are feeling and their symptoms, and feel happier, but they die just the same.

You can't 'think positive' and ward off death.

My DW survived ovarian cancer - only by a stroke of luck that she found it early enough to treat it. Had she not been undergoing fertility treatment and been scanned as part of that it would never have been seen and she would be dead by now. It was a hard fight but she survived by luck and early massive doses of carboplatin chemo.

I hate this. If you fight hard enough - you'll win! Because the people who 'lose' just didn't try hard enough... FFS.

Completely agree with you! My mum and dad have both had cancer, my mum twice! It's got sod all to do with whether or not they are 'fighting' it hard enough. Very insensitive.

I had cancer fifteen years ago. The fact that I am still here and more or less in one piece is down to nothing other than sheer dumb luck. The lump was obvious and therefore caught early. My GP gave me some good advice, which I took, and got into the system quickly. I am fortunate enough to live in a city with a regional oncology centre. The cancer I had had a reasonable prognosis even then.

I hated all the "battle" stuff then, and hate it just as much now. I didn't fight, I just went along with the treatment and hoped for the best. The hardest thing was having to tell family and friends and deal with their reactions. And no, I don't watch the adverts either.

Yanbu. It really isn't always a 'battle to be won'. My dad died last weekend aged 68 from pancreatic cancer with metasteses to the liver. He was ravaged by it over the space of 6 months. Chemo didn't even touch it. He had no chance and seen as less than 1% of research funding is spent on this type of cancer, the prognosis isn't likely to improve for others sadly.

I hate the "fight" analogy. The only way to survive cancer is if it's caught early enough and there are decent treatments for it. It's got sod all to do with how strong you are, what you have to love for or how hard you fight it.

My mum was the strongest person I know, she had my dad, me and four beautiful grandchildren to live for. Her cancer had spread and was stage four when it was found, she had no chance no matter how hard she fought or how positive we all were. There was nothing she could have done that would have helped her survive, she wasn't weak and she didn't lose her fight, the cancer was too far advanced.

I'm sick of all the adverts. They get to me every time and rip the wounds open again. I've done the race for life and support research into cancer when I can. It's a god awful disease and I hope that one day there will be less gruelling and more effective treatments for all forms of cancer.

I also hate all the chuggers for cancer charities, especially when they knock on your door and won't take no for an answer. There were several who came to my door in the last months of my mum's life and I told them my mum was terminal and I couldn't talk about it, a couple tried to use this to get me to sign up, all they got was the door closed. I know funding is needed but they could have had some compassion instead of seeing an opportunity.