Brave the shave - Macmillan

[VivienneWestwoodsKnickers]

Macmillan is a fantastic organisation, but I'm a little concerned by the new fundraising campaign. Is encouraging people to shave their heads really going to raise more money than the advertising campaign costs?

It seems a big ask, rather than a 5k run, that ice bucket challenge, or an coffee morning.

Is it just me? I can see it excluding a lot of people (including me) who might otherwise have participated in something like less "extreme", so that's a loss of potential money there is it not?

Headofthehive55
Nor mine ,
But I am glad they are positive at yours crumbs1,
My mum is away to start radiotherapy next week ,and they use the word cured with her .and cancer free .and she needed to hear that .

Totally agree that the council district nurses who nurse people dying at home, are amazing. I have the highest praise for them.
MacMillan nurses don't actually nurse.

The Macmillan nurse in my palliative care team has helped me a lot. I was starting to get pressure sores. I didn't know I was, I mentioned to her that I'd started getting a pain at the top of my bum, so she had a look at it and told me it was the beginnings of sores. So she arranged for me to have an inflatable mattress for the bed, and inflatable cushion for the chair/sofa. She also prescribed a cream for it and it's now cleared up.
She also prescribed morphine when paracetamol didn't help with the pain from the cancer. And she arranged a grant, as well as put the benefits advisor in touch with me. Oh, and she also arranged counselling for me and my husband.
So my experience with the Macmillan nurses is great, really helpful.

I have to agree with Brasty about the district nurses. They got on with it and helped get all the equipment we needed for DFIL, knew who to call for what and came in and changed dressings etc. Macmillan nurse on holiday. A year later, when DMIL became ill with a fast progressing cancer, the Macmillan nurse came 3 times then went off sick and that was it - we never saw him again. Everything was covered by the District nurses and GP and DMIL, in spite of being terminally ill did all the rest. When she got too ill, DH took over trying to get the bed. Unfortunately, the systems had changed within a year - so we got the mattresses and commode, but never did get the bed to put them on, nor the home care from social services (that was supposed to be in place within 24 hours). Fortunately, the district nurses came each evening to change her meds, and put her to bed.

God sorry wrong thread

crumbs, I have no wish to pick an argument with a fellow sufferer, but I really must say something about your claims that breast cancer has a high survival rate and can be cured.

What most people don't understand (and I was one of them before my own personal involvement) is that there are different types of breast cancer, and some are much more dangerous than others and cannot be "cured".

It sounds as if crumbs and her mum had estrogen positive BC, which is the most common kind and, yes, the prognosis is excellent with that type of BC, assuming it is caught early enough. Generally, it is a slow growing cancer, and slow to move to other parts of the body. I was diagnosed with that type of cancer in my right breast in August 2015 and, once it had been removed, I felt that I could get on with my life and not worry too much about it returning.

However, unfortunately for me, I was diagnosed with a different type of breast cancer in my left breast precisely one year later. This is triple negative breast cancer, called so because it does not have any if the three receptors which have been identified as drivers of breast cancer, estrogen being one of them, which can be kept at bay by drugs. TNBC is likely to be several different types of BC, but they haven't quite worked it out yet.

Some 15-20% of breast cancer sufferers have TNBC, the majority being young women, although black women also have higher rates of TNBC. I'm white and in my 50s, but I still had/have it. This type of cancer cannot be cured. It is extremely aggressive and spreads more readily to other parts of the body. Sometimes, tiny cancerous cells split off from the tumour at a very early stage and hide elsewhere, only to grow at a later stage. I have about a 34% risk of it spreading, although that risk diminishes after 5 years.The best we can hope for us NED - no evidence of disease.

I'm sorry for the lecture, but I hope you can understand that it is not comforting for someone like me to be told that breast cancer is curable now and that we can put it all behind us. We can't. Lingering pain from the treatment is bad enough, but the constant worry that it's going to come back and kill us is something that I and many fellow sufferers have to struggle to come to terms with.

My heart goes out to all of you who are struggling with cancer .

Of course there are different types and I'm sorry you have triple negative but that doesn't detract from the key message that most are now curable. Of course individuals suffer horribly but we really, really shouldn't be spreading the scare tactics that mean women freak completely at the mention of breast cancer. The majority are not triple negative.
We perhaps need to increase messages around exercise and alcohol use and associated prevalence/recurrence rates and do some proper research around aspirin use but somehow those messages aren't terribly well received.

whothefuck
I've reported your post for you, so it can be deleted. Maybe you can report too?

my Mum has TNBC and having watched her go through numerous scans, treatments and operations over several months with endless trips to the hospital, it's really opened my eyes to the harsh realities of living with cancer. I realised that I really had no bloody clue.
As for brave the shave, I know of three people who did it and they're all very much attention seeking types. It did make me feel uncomfortable and I wasn't sure why, but this thread has reassured me that I'm not alone!

Twitter thanks for reporting. I didn't think to do it myself in my embarrassment

My mum hated the idea of shaving your head for cancer charities, she thought it was attention seeking and flippant. The Macmillan nurse she had was rude, dismissive and utterly unsupportive when we were trying to move Mum home in her final days, the wrong bed came, and it finally took Dad a week to organise it all himself which was a precious week as she died 4 days after coming home.
Macmillan left us all with a bitter taste in our mouths. Marie Curie on the other hand were phenomenal, and the nurse who sat with us all the night before mum died was incredible. She kept us all standing on the worst night of our lives, and even stayed past her shift to make sure we'd all had breakfast. I give to Marie Curie and the Beatson charities, I wouldn't touch Macmillan with a barge pole.

Without wishing to start a bunfight Crumbs I'm with FallenMadonna on this. I don't have BC but I do have advanced OC and several friends who have recovered from BC. None of these friends consider themselves 'cured'.

As FM says, NED is the best outcome we all hope for.