Cancer Research adverts

[StripeyCover]

I just find it really that Cancer Research use a TV advert that shows real people breaking down and crying with their mother about their cancer diagnosis. It just feels so unnecessary to use this. And I feel like I am being emotionally manipulated in a really questionable way...

Yes wee it does occupy every waking moment. But having just had substantial surgery, I'm not able to do much, and watching tv has been about all I can do.
crumbs I'd say the treatment is pretty horrid from where I am right now - and with an uncertain benefit.

Treatment certainly isn't pleasant and of course it's sad people die of or with cancer - particularly the young. However, cancer is mainly a group of diseases related to old age. There are fantastic advances in the treatment of cancers and whilst nobody wants lopsided breasts or their hair falling out it is only for a maximum of a years treatment (usually) and isn't nearly as bad as the scaremongering and fear leads people to believe. I had a total of 16 days off work spread out during treatment which is small price to pay for a readily available and free service.

My dad has cancer and I know The Macmillan advert with the man alone in the snow really got to him.
He now has a Macmillan nurse and she's an angel.
The Marie Curie one about bringing light in the dark hours makes me sob, infact they all do. Cancer is brutal, no way to sell all fluffy and with unicorns!

Crumbs1 - The Teenage Cancer Trust works hard to support the many many young people suffering from Cancer. Your situation was mercifully short - many don't have that experience. Many ( my son included) have extensive stays in hospital, invasive surgery and lose direction as their career goals/education is stopped in its tracks.
He is lucky to be a survivor in remission. Many did not leave his ward alive.
Again - I am so grateful for the NHS and the cancer charities - both need our support

They are intentionally pulling your heartstrings, for a very very good cause.

I find them extremely upsetting and look away or walk out of the room when they come on. It brings floods of memories back and the pain. However they must plough ahead and beat the bastard once and for all and this can only happen with continued fundraising. As they say let's beat cancer!

But all charity adverts or awareness raising features are the same. The NSPCC adverts show upset and abused children. The RSPCA adverts show dogs with visible injuries in distress. The adverts asking for help in third world countries show starving emancipated children crying into the cameras. They're obviously made to tug on the heart-strings and are pretty effective at getting the money coming in. I don't have a problem with it TBH.

I havent seen one yet that hasn't made me stop and think (and get a lump in my throat).

And that's the point isn't it; to hit the message home and they do send out powerful messages.
We can't give up.

I don't mind them but detest the use of the word 'fight'. I work in palliative care and my patients are not where they are because they didn't fight hard enough.

@Crumbs1 sorry but your post is a bit disingenuous. I am glad that you found treatment ok and didn't have to have time off etc.

For many however this isn't the case. The current treatment I am on is brutal.

It isn't all scaremongering and just because you found it not to be do bad it doesn't mean others don't.

' isn't nearly as bad as the scaremongering and fear leads people to believe. I had a total of 16 days off work spread out during treatment which is small price to pay for a readily available and free service.'

I'm glad it was not bad for you, Crumbs1. Advances have been made with some cancers, but certainly not for quite a few of them - sometimes for decades. My daughter's chemo regime was so harsh to be quite frank, if I developed her type of cancer (AML) right now, I don't think I would opt for that treatment and go to palliative. Many adults do not survive it. It leaves others permanently disabled.

As for it's being 'sad' when young people die from cancer?! 'Sad'? It's fucking devastating. It ruined our lives when our child died. I mean, it's in the fucking swanny.

I have countless friends who have lost everything with the death of their children: marriages, friends, family, jobs, houses, many who are slowly killing themselves through addiction, still others who take their lives outright. I have PTSD and all sorts of problems and that's common.

I have to say that I agree with piglet. It is easy to say that breast cancer is more and more curable while omitting the fact that triple negative breast cancer survival rates haven't moved on very much at all.
I'm 39. I was 36 when diagnosed with stage 3 bc and my DC3 was only 8 weeks old.
I do appreciate that there are other diseases which should be researched of course, but if you think about what expat said earlier about childhood cancers,and what I'm saying about TNBC, it might serve to remind you that cancer is by no means just one disease.

I really dislike these adverts. The aim is to shock you into donating. I think they are callous and have no regard for the people who find them extremely upsetting.

I know they are effective but that doesn't make them ok. If I were in charge on fund raising one of my rules would be that I wouldn't want to cause further upset to people who are already effected by cancer.

I have to turn them off, Politix.

My DF died of lung cancer very recently, and it was a brutal long nightmare for him, and his family. I won't go into detail here, but he suffered enormously. The NHS care let us down massively and there were few, if any, options available as regards treatment for this type of cancer. Some cancers are very treatable compared to what they used to be, but there are still so many that are basically a death sentence, such as lung cancer and liver cancer which have very high mortality rates. It's a horrible disease which still needs so much research and funds.

Yes AML is not as responsive as ER+ breast cancer but in under 60s 80 % go into full remission after first course of chemo. Yes I am delighted my breast cancer is not triple negative but 77% survive post 5 years. My point is not that for sufferers this isn't tough but for most there is light at the end of the tunnel. That is not the case with MND, progressive MS, infantile Battens, Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, pulmonary hypertension or a myriad of other diseases with far worse prognosis than many cancers. I just think we should try to reduce the terror many experience when they hear the C word by giving the hopeful, positive truth of cure rates for many cancers. We should be celebrating how far breast cancer treatment has come and that radical mastectomy is not now the norm. It's brilliant that PSA testing allows a watch and wait programme of surveillance rather than debilitating surgery.

'Yes AML is not as responsive as ER+ breast cancer but in under 60s 80 % go into full remission after first course of chemo.'

And you realise they need more chemo to keep them NED, four rounds, in fact, back to back, that is the protocol. The protocol is not one round of chemo, oh, look, you're NED, all fixed up now because it's known that one round will not keep a person NED. And hey, fuck those 20%! Here's a fact, too: those 20% who don't respond as well, their prognosis is shit. 50% of those diagnosed with AML die within 5 years as a result, but you're here blowing it off. FFS. There are numerous mutations of AML which are pretty much lethal in paeds. Not to mention the numerous other cancers with shocking survival rates. DIPG, anyone? No one survives that. Pancreatic cancer? Best of luck, most of them die, too. Multiple myeloma, astroglioma, neuroblastoma . . . I could be here all fucking night.

But hey, let's celebrate because it was easy, peasy for Crumbs and there are other disesase which are lethal. Newsflash: there's no light at the end of the tunnel when you're fucking dead!

Whilst I agree that there has been progress, that's not always a great comfort as you don't actually know if you will survive or not.

I sometimes think they should be mindful of the population they are trying to help, to make our journeys more bearable.

It's a bit like childbirth, just because you have had a sneeze birth doesn't mean the next woman will. She might not make it.

YANBU

I know it's real, I lived it like so many millions of people live it every day. I won't get the image out of my head of telling my children their dad has two weeks to live and I won't get the image out of my head of them crying over their father's body. I get flashbacks already, I will never stop seeing it.

When those adverts come on it brings it all back even more.

I understand both points of view though.

[hugs] to all the posters who have had their lives affected by cancer.