To find this advert really quite offensive?

[JuanPotatoTwo]

Or perhaps I'm just being sensitive considering the circumstances.

The advert is a cancer related one which says something like "more people survive cancer now than die from it".

The circumstances are that my friend lost her 21 yr old son to cancer on Monday. Although, tragically he is just one of several people in my life who have been taken by it. And nearly everyone I know has lost someone to cancer.

So what message are all the people who are currently suffering, with no hope of recovery, meant to take from this advert? To me it seems like a sort of "oh well, they don't matter, they're going to die anyway"

Does anyone else find this ad insensitive and upsetting? I know I haven't articulated what I mean very well - I can't find the words. But interested if anyone else has had the same reaction?

The idea of raising money is so that one day these rare cancers will be curable. There were plenty of diseases humans used to die of and now don't due to research and funding. I understand it's upsetting but to watch 5 seconds of an ad then judge it as offensive without understanding the whole message is a bit unfair. If cancer charities have to tiptoe around the progress they've made, it will restrict how they can advertise and donations will go down, then nobody wins.

I have recent experience of a family member with cancer so you have my total sympathies.

Yeah piece we're having a Macmillan coffee morning and I will be having a quiet word with the organiser, explaining why I am not taking part and making sure that she doesn't directly approach me for donations.

I think like many organisations, Macmillan are only as good as the representative you get, and ours sucked.

But it does rub salt in the wound when you break down at work or whatever and people are telling you to go and contact Macmillan and you have to explain that you've been turned away, nobody (including Macmillan) has any idea about other support services. And then they have those adverts and they tell you that they support families affected by cancer, it's like they're saying I don't even count because I'm not 'normal'.

I'm well aware that some of my feelings at least are misplaced anger at the bloody disease, but Macmillan are supposed to make things easier.

annie that would be great. Apart from anything else, the adverts have to get more and more emotional because we're getting used to them, and we risk switching off altogether.

Aspie, I don't get their logic. Surely they didn't just say "No, cos you have autism"??

Not exactly, they said that my difficulties weren't caused by my relative's diagnosis, but by my 'existing mental health problems' which meant that my GP/local mental health services were a more appropriate port of call and therefore they wouldn't refer me to counselling or their psychiatrist. I was allowed to see the nurse- but as she was assigned to my relative the nurse wouldn't come to see me specifically, I had to go along to my relative's meetings- which wasn't acceptable for either of us.

When I said I had been to my local mental health services already, the only other suggestion Macmillan had was going to the nearest big hospital to visit their information centre- which I can't do because of the anxiety associated with my Asperger's.

That's ridiculous. So non-NT people aren't upset by cancer because cancer is upsetting, but because they're non-NT? Whut.

Oh OP I am so sorry - recently loss someone too and I can see how raw you feel

I think ? Message it that research is prolonging life and saving life

But the messages are hit and miss

Sorry for your dear friend

Do remember a lot of the people in the sparky fairy boas have most often lost a loved one or are in remission

It's not my cup of tea either ! But I have come to realise that x

Andrew, were your Macmillan nurses actually funded by Macmillan, or were they Macmillan branded paid for by someone else?

Our Macmillan funded nurse was useless and we banned her. "Macmillan" nurses in the hospice, branded but funded by the hospice, were excellent. And made the very good point that people tended to donate to Macmillan, reducing the hospices donations.

With regards to improving cancer treatment, I am also an ex- scientist. If these big corporations charities stopped spending money on prime time adverts and chiggers, maybe there'd be more money to pay researchers a decent wage.

Micah I don't know. It was a friend who died a few years ago through whom I heard about Macmillan. I survived without needing nursing at home more than twenty years of borrowed time ago.

I find a lot of these cancer adverts upsetting.

My dad died of liver cancer (which is particularly nasty, given that most people diagnosed with it die within 5 months of their diagnosis) two years ago.

I remember telling a work colleague that he was ill with terminal cancer, and that was why I was doing half days (my work were incredibly supportive of me during dad's illness, allowing me to work part-time hours on full time pay). Her reaction was "I hope he's fighting it" which was totally inappropriate and I found incredibly upsetting because he couldn't fight it.

He died within four months of his diagnosis. He wasn't given any treatment beyond palliative care. That's all they could do.

Macmillan were brilliant though. As were the NHS nurses and drs who came to the house to see him every day.

In general Macmillan are amazing intend to see them as the ones who provide very practical compassionate care ? Put another way they are my preferred cancer charity . I hope I have the right end of the stick ?

Macmillan (funded) nurses help with benefits, money, practicalities. Some deal with prescriptions. Ours asked my uncle constantly how he felt about dying, which is why we had to ask her not to return.

Generally, they don't "nurse". Most "Macmillan" nurses that do end of life care, in hospices etc, carry the branding but are not paid for by Macmillan.

the local end of life nurses in my uncles case were horribly overstretched. we had to send them away too, so they could go and care for a 14 year old boy properly, rather than split their time. Macmillan just told us it was tough, they didn't provided nurses to care for patients.

Yes, help with benefits. The Macmillan nurse(s) messed my relative around, saying they could help with benefits then when the nurse came she said my relative needed an appointment with the specialist benefit advisor nurse- who then told my relative they couldn't get PIP until their SSP had run out (not true, they confused it with ESA).