Brave The Shave - NOT IN MY NAME

[TwitterQueen1]

I know IANBU but posting here for traffic.

I see Macmillan is now advertising BTS on tv. It doesn't seem to matter how many of us protest that the whole campaign:

• is extremely offensive and upsetting
• trivialises and minimises the effects of chemo
• claims that it makes people understand what it's like to have cancer

Would you paint black and bruises on your face to 'show support' for victims of DV?

Would you tie one leg behind your back and hop around town to 'show support' for those with disabilities?

• Do you know that Macmillan are asking those who've done BTS is "How are enjoying your new look?" or even worse - "Hope you're enjoying your new look!" WT actual Fuck. I mean, us cancer patients absolutely ADORE losing all our hair and feeling like total shit for months.... and random healthy strangers indulging in narcissistic, attention-grabbing stunts makes us feel even better.

And (in response to my complaint) these offensive statements apparently fall within Macmillan's social media guidelines'?

Bathe in baked beans, run marathons, walk a mile, hold coffee mornings.... do ANYTHING ELSE, but don't pretend for a second that shaving your head helps you understand how cancer patients feel. You have absolutely no idea at all. None.

Fucking awful campaign, loved by narcissists.

I have lost all my hair 3 times through various cancer treatments. I emphasise 'all my hair'. Shaving your head has absolutely nothing to do with how. you feel as a cancer patient when you lose your eyebrows and the rest of the hair from your body. I know that the campaign has raised a lot of money for Macmillan but I am uncomfortable with it and agree with the OP.

Totally, 100 per cent with you OP. The only opinions that matter is those with the lived experience.

The only people who should shave their heads "for cancer" are those who wish to make a family member feel less alone and even then not as an "I feel ya" sort of nonsense. I've seen parents do it for their child and then it's an act of love that chocks me up. Doing it for charity? Just give the fucking money or don't, but this sort of thing is frankly toxic.

YANBU.

PavlovianLunge

The aim is to donate hair to make wigs for cancer patients

Are you sure about this? A friend has donated hair twice, and it’s had to be long; certainly longer than most people I know keep their hair. It also can have no more than (iirc) 10% grey.

Yes, charities differ but the minimum length is 6 or 7 inches and hair must only have minimal grey and not be dyed or otherwise chemically treated.

There are other charities that can use more types and any lengths of hair to create matting that is used to soak up oil spills.

Agree with OP that BTS is offensive. People can fundraise in other ways.

My lovely DH died of cancer aged just 28 and I find it deeply offensive, always have. His pet hate was the phrase “ battling” cancer.

I totally and utterly agree.

I am 6 years post cancer, but remember walking f4om the car park into the hospital for my third chemo session. It was windy and my hair was just blowing away in the wind. I put my hand to my head and came away with clump loads.
To see the grinning fund raisers makes me tearful.

Anything but this.

But not pink 😐

OP I totally agree, and like others I hate the whole 'battling cancer, kicking cancer's arse' rhetoric. Cancer is what is is; for some of us (me included, twice) we are lucky. For others, that's not the case. I wish those of you on this horrible 'journey' (fucking hate that word too!) the very very best.

I actually run a new, small, growing cancer charity in honour of my friend's daughter who died aged 19 from glioblastoma. We totally abhor this kind of 'look at me' fundraising; when Charlotte's hair began to fall out she was so distressed... not helped by the nurse who told her 'worse things can happen'. For Charlotte, aged 16 it was the worst she could envisage at that stage... and then it got worse and worse until she died. At 19. MNHQ, please delete link if you like: www.charlottebag.com tells you her story and what we are trying to do.

It is very sad that vital cancer support services like MacMillan actually need charitable donations in the first place. That is just not right to me.

Best wishes to all of you going through treatment.

Totally agree with you op. Getting your head shaved is nothing like how losing your hair from chemo is like.

My mum lost hers while having treatment and the image that still sticks in my mind is her shivering under her duvet with just her head showing. She looked like a baby. She cried later that day as I helped her get her socks on as she couldn’t because she was so ill.

How can shaving your head even compare ?

YANBU

@HelenaDove - it was Lynda Lee Potter who wrote the nasty things about Mo Mowlam. She was - surprise surprise - a Daily Mail columnist. Ironically, she died from a brain tumour some years ago.

I have been a bald cancer patient 🙂
If BTS is sponsored to raise funds for a cancer charity that is praiseworthy but if it is a ‘Look at ME!’ gesture it is a more cringeworthy.
As for feeling like a cancer patient they won’t wake up to tufts of hair on their pillow or have it come out in handfuls in the shower. They won’t feel the awful painful prickling just before it drops out or the sheer despair of looking in the mirror when your face is grey and bloated , your eyebrows gone and your scalp bald.
I hope all who BTS never get closer to cancer than that.

Thanks op and others I'd never looked at it that way. I'd assumed that it was a good way to raise money and raise the profile of the charity not realising how it made people with cancer feel. I wish you the best for a good recovery

Pennine pink... yes... where do you start with that one.

Ref hair for wigs comments... the vast majority of BTS have nothing to do with this. I understand there are pretty strict rules & regs around this.

Ref 'fighting' 'battling' 'staying strong' 'being positive'. Patronising crap that makes us feel like failures if, like me, the cancer is terminal.

Ah yes thats right thanks Cressida. Daily Mail What a surprise!!

TwiitterQueen

I completely agree OP. What next? Drawing on mastectomy scars?
When I saw the ad I almost started the same thread. I feel the same about the bloody Julie Walters and her bloody 'slice'. Macmillan did nothing for us when my dad was dying. I speak as someone who had BC.

I hate it too I have had cancer and chemo but fortunately for me my hair didn't fall out, I did however have a major operation, sickness, weight gain and early menopause, and some people who seemed to think it wasn't real chemo because my hair didn't fall out.

Lily did you get any comments about being 'too fat' for cancer? I've had one of those ... apparently we're all supposed to be 6 stone wraiths - ignoring the fact that nausea, steroid weight gain, inability to be active, inability to eat etc are all chemo side-effects. I guess they don't make good headlines though. Hope you're feeling better now.

100% with you, OP!

I think it's OK for people to shave their hair off for charity. Just do it without the trivial pretence of empathy offered by by "Brave the Shave".

TwitterQueen1 I became close friends with a group of us going through treatment there were 5 of us.
I had a double mastectomy, chemo, rads, recon. I hae 21 out of 23 lymph nodes affected. Then ovarian cancer. I kind of just went with the flow. I did not battle, i did not fight, i just turned up, get treated and went home.
To date, i have survived. The two fighters in my little group both had lumpectomies and rads. They are dead. They are dead because cancer killed them, n9t because they did not fight, not because they 'lost the battle', but simply because cancer killed them.

I ws lucky. Hopefully I will continue to be lucky. I never saw a Macmillan nurse during the two years i was being treated, so cannot comment on that, but I so resent the implication that strong people beat cancer, i can hardly speak.

Warm regards to those going through it now. The adverts for anything cancer related still knot my stomach now. Take care x

Hope everyone going through it as easy a time as possible x

in big bunches for you TwitterQueen I wish you well my dear.

Lily thats why i think there should be a campaign raising awareness of the side effects.

I got my arse handed to me on a plate earlier this year because i found Cancer Researchs obesity as the second biggest cause of cancer campaign problematic. Because there are many Lynda Lee Potters around ready to denigrate people for the way they look. Cancer Resarch have an excellent point but it should have been part of the same campaign that some of the cancer treatment itself can cause weight gain.

Lily makes an excellent point too. Not all chemo patients lose their hair

There is also the fact that chemo itself can leave some patients with permanent health issues.

I know a woman who did the brave the shave to "keep her best friend company" who was going through breast cancer. She asked around work for sponsors and I was itching to say something. I was a coward and didn't as she is prone to hysterics.

She has kept the bald look now, and claim that having it shaved was the true her. Yawn yawn. It's all for a look at me attention. Drives me mad.

Oh, and I am stage 4 too! Still alive and kicking..... well flicking a heel occasionally 😋