Raising Awareness of......

[LittleRedSparke]

How many times do we need to be 'made aware of ' so many different things?

Is there a single person in the UK who does not know about breast cancer, or autism, or disabilities or mh issues, or etc etc etc

Even at work there's someone posting about doing xxxx pink to raise awareness of breast cancer... (its a work thing so dont want to 'out' myself)

what does it help, you wearing pink doesnt raise any funds to research it, doesnt make me have a cure..... argh

(i'm very grumpy today, so ready to be told aibu - i still wont like it though)

balletgirlmum pancreatic cancer is shocking. The symptoms are often very similar to IBS and the survival rate is appalling. Yes raising awareness, and hopefully funding into treatment, would be worthwhile.

I have breast cancer, what really gets my goat is people shaving their heads to raise awareness! I just don't get it. Are they going to dye the shabby regrowth grey as that's how most peoples hair grows back?
I agree that Secondary Breast Cancer needs more awareness - and more funding - but that isn't pink or pretty as there is no cure for that.

Some beautiful model with her perfect breasts really pisses me off too, as I have no breasts at all so don't flaunt them in my fucking face.

Absolutely agree with KurriKurri, I have been there too and believe me there is no pink ribbon or glitter about breast cancer. It leaves your body scarred (yep the scars are pink) and your mind changed. Now every headache, backache, tummy ache is terrifying because ...what if?
There is nothing quite like the cold sick fear when you have a check up due or a worrying symptom to investigate.
Every October out come the models in pink boas,"Let's hear it for the brave girls!" There's nothing brave, no battle to win or journey to take. The only good thing I have brought from my breast cancer is the friendship of some wonderful women too many of whom have been taken too soon by this cruellest of diseases (all cancers included).

'his isn't popular but for a lot of Cancers, we know what causes them, but people want to lead crappy lifestyles, so I don't want to waste money on giving to researching those.'

No, Bird, actually 'we' don't know what causes a lot of cancers. I read a lot of ignorant shit on here, but this one is definitely in the running for the prize.

My daughter died of leukaemia. She was fucking 9 years old. NO ONE knows what caused her to get that. Her consultant is one of the top paed leukaemia experts in the world. She's a professor who has spent decades wracking her ginormously brilliant brain trying to figure it out, along with hundreds of others.

Yet there are fuckwits out there who still believe all the 'lifestyle' bollocks?!

There were babies in there who were born with cancer. But I'm sure some twats out there believe it was their parents' fault someone, they had 'crappy lifestyles' (I know for a fact they did not).

agree very much with kurrikurri and expat
I am quite cynical about the amount of money thrown at the 'glamourous' (ie. easy to market) cancers and the whole pink glittery thing that goes with it and question whether people really bother to understand what cancer is/how it can happen - it seems just an excuse to prance around annoying people who live day to day with cancer or the after effects of cancer treatment. No battling or fighting goes on, people just have to get on with it and no one loses their fight with cancer, they die. Catching any cancer early is vitally important of course and people should be educated to know when things aren't quite right in their own bodies. It makes me mad that secondary breast cancer is so side lined as this is the cancer that will kill you, not the lump in your breast.
As for lifestyle crap - cancer can get anyone,irrespective of age and general health - my football playing,sporty little brother had cancer and died an I now have what is in effect terminal cancer and I haven't lead a crappy lifestyle.

I'm sorry about your brother, bugger. My daughter was 8 when she was diagnosed. We had an amazing lifestyle, plenty of fresh air out here in the country, not that any of that mattered because no one knows what caused her bone marrow to go so wrong. There was a baby who came in with the same disease, AML, a few months after we did. She was 10 months old. She died when she was 16 months old. Her parents are some of the cleanest living, sporty people I've known, both in their early 30s at the time. There were several other babies in there, one of whom was born with liver cancer, first spotted at the 20-week scan.

People trot out the 'crappy lifestyle' to distance themselves, bugger, to give them what they feel a buffer between cancer and the reality that anyone can get it, no matter what lifestyle they have. It's a sort of 'us' and 'them' insecurity.

It's still utter piss, though.

Expat and Bugger, again, spot on.
Lifestyle? I did not smoke, weighed in at perfect weight, drank rarely, excercised regularly, ate well, took the pill for 3 years in total and BF both children. So tell me, what did I do 'wrong'?
Expat, I am so sorry to hear about your daughter, I cannot imagine the pain of losing a child.
Buggier, I got fed up with being told how brave I was and what a great fighter I was, I had no choice. If it was going to kill me, no matter how hard I fought, or how brave I was, it would still have killed me.

I have had secondaries and the reaction of consultants and friends has been completely different. My Consultant matter of factory just told me my cancer was incurable. It is there, it cannot be taken away and there is very little they will be able to do in the future bar palliative care. Friends are not as 'excited' (wrong word, but cannot think of the right one) about the BC that spread, I don't think they 'get'it.

As it happens, I am two years past the secondary diagnosis and feeling fine, but hate, hate, hate all the pink shit and fuss around cancer. It is not a pink and fluffy thing to have.

I often wonder of the lifestyle crap touted by some people is a version of some sort of denial/protective thing. As in 'this is something that happens to other people because XYZ, and therefore it won't happen to me because I don't do XYZ' - utter rubbish of course - and really turns into a form of victim blaming.

I get annoyed enough with the people who sidle up to me and say >head tilt> 'I wonder if it was because you eat too much dairy/breastfed/didn't breastfeed/did something WRONG ???' and of course no it isn't for any of those reasons - cancer is random and cruel. If it annoys me, someone who so far has survived, how completely devastating must such nonsense be for those who have lost their beloved children, or are themselves dealing with incurable cancers.

Ignorance prevails in so many quarters of life, for all those who have to deal with it.

'Lifestyle? I did not smoke, weighed in at perfect weight, drank rarely, excercised regularly, ate well, took the pill for 3 years in total and BF both children. So tell me, what did I do 'wrong'?'

I find it a shame that someone even has to write that. No one deserves to get cancer. It blows my mind that there are people who believe that others somehow brought this terrible disease on themselves, no matter what their 'lifestyle' and so fuck researching it.

It's a disgusting viewpoint. I can't write a proper coherent response because those comments upset me so much after losing my auntie (who for the record was a lovely woman who didn't have a "crappy lifestyle"). She was 53.

Op have you heard of hemiplegic migraine? Do you know what one is and what to do if you encounter someone having one?

If any of those answers are no then awareness needs to continue to be raised

I agree that was an awful, insensitive comment.

A friends daughter died of cancer when she was 3. Too many posters on here have had children die. What can a child do to 'deserve' that?

I was 9 when I was diagnosed with skin cancer. Thankfully a fantastic doctor noticed it very early and got it off before it became a problem.

luncjpack I didn't until my sister was rushed to hospital at about 19 with what we all thought was another hemeorgae or a stroke. Scary things!

Expat, I totally agree, I just wanted to point out that lifestyle plays a small part in most cases, though if you listened/read news, you would not think so!
How many times have we heard that women drinking a glass of wine a day are more likely to get BC?
When I was having chemo one day, I got chatting to a woman who was there with her next door neighbour who had lung cancer. Apparently it was all her own fault, she had brought it on herself and she deserved everything that was coming because she was a smoker.
Sorry, I don't give a shit what people have done, no one deserves to die like that.
I probably wrongly believe that if you are predisposed to cancer, it does not matter if you have been a vegan teetotal vigil nun, you will get it. Lifestyle undoubtably plays a part, but only if it is lurking in the first place.

Explains why I personally know of several people in their 80's who have smoked and drunk all of their lives and have more energy than I do......

sirzy sorry to hear about your sister. They're horrible things and can have long term physical and mental effects on the health. Never mind the fear of not knowing if it's a migraine or a stroke because they're identical...

A rare illness that needs awareness raising

when I was in hospital having chemo established (choriocarcinoma - in my case 'caused by' pregnancy...crappy lifestyle choice??) the woman in the bed opposite me died. She had lung cancer, she was not very old, she smoked - she knew this had caused her cancer. She was a mum, a sister, a daughter, a best friend.....she wasn't some collection of 'crappy lifestyle choices' - what a ridiculous thing to say. No-one deserves to die young, in pain, with a near stranger your only company.

I'm in a minority as I do know with absolute certainty what caused my cancer. At least I am one of the special blameless people who deserves research funding unless it is my fault for making an error copying a gene shortly after my conception...

If you know what causes lots of cancers Birds then it would be great if you could share that with all the cancer researchers so they start to address those things. For most people it is a complex combination of all sorts of factors, many of which probably haven't even been discovered yet. It's rarely a case of doing X and getting Y cancer (or other disease), that's why they are generally called risk factors rather than causes. Some people have all the risk factors and no disease, others have none of the (known) risk factors and get sick. I wouldn't wish cancer on anyone, regardless of their lifestyle choices, and believe anyone would deserve the same sympathy and treatment.

I am fed up of cancer awareness, and especially of how little the opinions of those who have had cancer matter. There have been several controversial breast cancer awareness campaigns - the event with the almost nude "celeb" painted pink, at a Playboy club and the M&S show your bra strap ones spring to mind - and I've seen some very eloquent complaints from women who have actually had breast cancer, but they've been completely ignored or dismissed. It is all about the money and the publicity. Another thing is that a lot of people object to the use of words like "brave" and "fighting cancer", practically everyone I know who has had cancer agrees, and yet companies continue to use them.

If people are still not aware of breast cancer then I think it would show that the current awareness techniques are not working.

It is all very well to say awareness is still needed because people don't know about X condition, but there are so many conditions. We can't possibly be aware of every single one. I think the most important thing is for people to be aware of symptoms which require emergency attention, and basic first aid measures. And then a reminder to seek less urgent medical attention for other symptoms, whatever they are. Lumps anywhere on the body should be checked out, as should unexpected bleeding from any orifice, or anything persistent that isn't normal for that person.

I think awareness is a good thing. There are certain illnesses that people are incredibly ignorant about. I have ME/CFS. The only people who know what it is are those I know with it or people who have a close relative or friend with it. Most people just look blankly and even when you attempt to explain it, there is still no understanding and they make no effort to understand. It frustrates me. I post many things about it on my FB, because I have a few friends on there with it and I am sharing it with them plus it may educate a few more people.

That was badly worded I think awareness is helpful, sometimes. But especially for big, well-known diseases it would be better to focus on raising funds for research. But that's less glamorous and less of an excuse for nudity.

A lot of the problems addressed by awareness-raising could be eliminated if people were a bit more tolerant in general. They shouldn't need to know the ins and outs of a specific condition to be sympathetic and make allowances or adjustments as needed. ME/CFS runs in my family, and I was diagnosed with it for a few years before my cancer diagnosis, so I do understand the frustrations. I hope yours improves soon

YABU.

Take MND for example. Many people were totally unaware of it until the ice bucket challenge. Many people still have little understanding of the shitty crap disease.

It's a bit like on here when someone posts a new thread and gets told "yeah yeah, it's been done before". Just because some people saw the thread doesn't mean a new comer doesn't. Same with illnesses. Don't like it, don't participate, switch off, do what you've got to do. Let the people who feel passionate that any publicity is good get on with helping.

I'm all for raising awareness. Just don't do it by sharing a bloody minion on facebook.

October is Lupus Awareness month and I have to say that the FB posts produced by Lupus UK each day have been really interesting and informative. Short, concise and containing useful information about symptoms, treatment, diagnosis etc. I think they've done a great job raising awareness of what Lupus actually is. I wish all Awareness Raising could be as genuinely informative.

www.facebook.com/LUPUSUK

Lunch I suffer from those migraines for years but never knew they had a specific name.

Agreed with the issues with lack of awareness of CFS/Fibro but some of the most ignorant people I have encountered have actually been general practice doctors. Which is hard because you are supposed to be able to rely on them to know about the conditions they are trying to treat.

It is also very difficult to keep sterio typing out of awareness. This has been failed for several conditions. Downs, ASD, CP.

I am fed up of being told that if i ate better/just got off my ass and exercised more I will feel better. Yeah that works with CFS/Fibro

But I am totally and utterly sick and tired of ill-advised and pointless awareness campaigns. Give me facts, give me information (the lupus stuff sounds great) but posting stupid stuff, dressing up doesn't do anything.

www.huffingtonpost.com/leisha-davisonyasol/october-pinkwashing_b_4102424.html this was the best thing to pop up on my time line this October.

Sorry I should probably clarify that the article basically voices some of the frustrations previous posters have said about the impact of people who have/had breast cancer of October and it's pinkness. It saved itself as 'Please put down that pink can of soup and put your bra back on.' as it's title.

Just so no one is going in blind to that link