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.

Completely agree with you TQ. I was recently diagnosed with BC last month and this advert gives me the rage. Mind you most things gives me the rage at the moment!

Crisps and Mrs Cholly Thank you for posting, I have a rage for them as well.

When my mum and Nan were diagnosed with cancer within months of each other (the types of cancer you have no chance of recovering from) they didn't want anything to do with us even though it was just my sister and I caring for both of them at the same time.

Thank fuck for St Georges hospital and the Princess Alice Hospice.

I'd also like to know what type of cancer patient you need to be for them to get involved.

That's another brilliant point Dulce... anyone who hasn't lost their hair clearly isn't suffering enough.... you obviously don't have 'real' cancer if you're not bald.....

Similarly, I was looking 'exceptionally well with rosy cheeks'.... no matter how many times I said my latest chemo turned my skin red because it was red in colour.

Macmillan 'discharged' me and my DF. He was dying and in terrible pain. Thank God for our local cottage hospital. They were wonderful.

It seems hard for people to truely believe you have cancer if you don't lose your hair doesn't it twitter
I have quite a recent form of treatment that I can do at home and has no hair loss. Everyone comments about how well I look with enquiring eyes, am I really ill at all, was it lies? ........ I can't usually explain how depressing the diahorreah, acne, sore skin and nose problems, cystitis etc are because its not chemo and those problems are all yukky.

whats the point in fundraising for Macmillan? all they do is make offensive adverts asking for more money. do they not realise that they are constantly upsetting cancer patients and their families or do they just not care? cancer research can fuck off and all.

I suppose the point is that the big charities are big businesses. Our Charlotte was featured in photo shoot for Clic Sargent. She and her mum were absolutely appalled when they went for the shoot by the high end offices that Clic Sargent have. And when you start to look into what senior management of eg CRUK earn, its quite a shocking amount. A very shocking amount.

And they all give out the blah about £1 spent earns us £3 more (or whatever their ratio is) but they spend a LOT of money on resources, staff etc, and then they choose to focus their research spend on the areas where they can make a quick and easy difference.

Look at the difference in spend on breast cancer and brain cancer (and I mean absolutely no disrepect to those with breat cancer) but breast cancer is now relatively easy to treat; survival rates have gone up enormously, and if the worst comes to the worst then a mastectomy does not mean end of life. Whereas with a malignant brain tumour: no new drugs since 1999, because it is an expensive, difficult, time-consuming area to research. And eventually, with a malignant brain tumour you will die, because surgery, chemo, radio and meds cannot offer a solution at the moment.

Brain cancer recieves only 1 per cent of national cancer research funding; yet in the words of one consultant I work with "if we can beat brain cancer we can beat any other cancer".

I dont know the answer: I am lucky to have survived two melanomas with maybe a 3rd on the way. What I do know is that the cancer patient and their family shoudl have more of an input into the messages that are put out.

Well said OP couldn't agree more.

No need to shave your head to donate hair to the little princess trust either. Dd donated 15 inches of hair when she decided to go short, no fanfares just a jiffy bag and padded envelope and I popped in a cheque to help cover the costs of using her hair.

We sometimes have Macmillan nurses who visit people in the nursing homes, but we’re already trained in palliative and cancer care so are already doing all the things the Macmillan nurse tells us to do nursing is nursing regardless of the disease involved and palliative care isn’t rocket science. These nurses don’t have special powers.

When my late dh was ill one came round to the house and had a cup of tea and talked about herself then never came back.

I reckon all the money they raise mainly goes on keeping the head honchos in jobs. They don’t even employ most of the nurses they train, the nhs employs them.

Not every one would agree with you Op
Sorry for all the cancer sufferers, but Ds1 (18 now) shaved his head when in year 10, lovely girl, died last year, was coming back to school, bog standard comprehensive, and was truly sick with worry she would stand out and didn't want to, her parents asked if anyone would go bald to stand next to her, all 31 in her form did.
Her mum still thanks Ds and friends for putting a smile on her daughters face.
We no longer give to cancer charities, sick of all the hype, we give to PSP and other worth while charities no one gives a fuck about, all you ever hear about is people fighting cancer, and many have similar angry nasty attitudes as the Op.

Wishing you the very best TwitterQueen, yanbu

I was planning on shaving my head to raise money, before the BTS was on my radar, and then donate my hair to the Little Princess Trust. I wanted to do something to raise money for the hospice in which my beloved MIL died a month after her cancer diagnosis, and to help to provide a wig for a child going through chemo - which I know can be a great comfort from friends who had cancer in childhood.

I can't run a marathon due to arthritis, I certainly can't afford to donate a large sum of money myself, but I can inform family and friends what I am doing and ask if they would like to sponsor or donate. I don't have social media, I won't be publicising it beyond our friends and family, it certainly isn't coming from a place of narcisim, I have more than two feet of untreated good condition hair which could bring someone else a tiny bit of comfort or cheer during a devastating time and raise a lot of money for the hospice which relies on donations and receives no other funding. Perhaps I should rethink though if people find it so offensive, MIL certainly wouldn't have but it is clear that many people on here would find it distressing to see or hear about.

I can only concur that the 'fighting','brave' rhetoric around cancer is damaging and hurtful, I hated seeing it when MIL was ill, it was terminal from the diagnosis only a month before she died, and no amount of fighting or bravery was going to help.

Not in my name either please,

(BTW cutting your hair and donating it to Little Princess isn’t the same as this Macmillan campaign by a long way)

There’s hardly any medicines that are licences for use in children because it’s too difficult to obtain ethical approval to test medication on children.

Children’s chemo regimes have been developed very carefully over the years. By experts who have worked out safe ratios.

In answer to a previous poster - the amount of research into children's cancers is almost none existent. It's why I don't donate to cancer research.
Agree with posters who despise the 'stay strong' rhetoric. When my DD has cancer it's all anyone said to us... I know people mean well and don't know what to say... but I spent so long hiding my real fears I almost had a breakdown...
anyway. Glad to read this thread. Best wishes to all

I volunteered at Macmillan when they created this campaign and raised that it was inappropriate. I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks so.

I totally agree and it has always made me squirm, it seems insensitive and mocking.

But... The two people I know who did it, did it with the full consent and support of close friends/relatives who were undergoing treatment.
First was mutual friend of a wonderful woman who died last summer, she shaved bald in solidarity when friends treatment started. She also did lots of other awareness raising with friend and after her death for the specific type of cancer

The other is a 16 year old whose mother has just been given the all clear from breast cancer. She donated the 13 inches of hair to the little princess trust. Her mother was overwhelmed by the support and emotion.

I guess not every cancer sufferer feels the same.

When my daughter was having cancer treatment (she started at 4 years old) I asked her consultant if I should shave my head, so she didn't feel alone or worry about mine swishing about. He said, "she'll look at you every day, and it won't look like mummy. It's not helpful to her" and, thinking about it, he was right.

Normality, the boring, run of the mill life we took for granted before she was diagnosed, was what we craved. Being back to normal when our lives had been tipped upside down - the school run, what's for tea, pj's and Corrie. These things, and a hundred others, had been taken away from us. Our family scattered to family to help with our other kids whilst she spent many weeks in hospital, needing someone to bring me more knickers in, more pjs for DD as she'd been sick on all we'd bought in.

The nuances of living with cancer, are only understood if you have to live with cancer.

Wishing you the very best 💐💐💐

User what your son and his classmates did was in direct support of a friend - not to raise money, or climb on a bandwagon.

I think there should also be more controls around what’s acceptable as a radio ad from Macmillan. I say radio ads in particular, because a lot of people will be listening while they’re driving.

There was an awful one a couple of years back, basically acting out a scene where someone is given their diagnosis. A close family member had just been told they had cancer and I found the advert so upsetting I actually had to pull the car over. I can’t imagine what it would have been like hearing that if it had triggered memories of someone’s own diagnosis. And this was in prime drivetime

It did not make me want to donate...

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

You don't need to shave your head to donate hair. My DD, when she was planning to get her long hair cut decided to donate it via the alitrle Princess Trust. It is utterly explicit in their website that shaving is not required, but that donations need to be at least 6 inches long. It also states how it needs to be tied and how to wrap it for sending.

The Macmillan campaign does not even remotely touch on those aspects and is simply a way to raise money, and it's one that I was uneasy at seeing, but could not - before reading this thread - quite articulate why.

I hate this.

My DH is in 'partial remission' from a late stage lymphoma which will return. I try not to cry much because it's not especially useful. But last time I did was during his most recent treatment, when his hair started to come out in handfuls at the start of his second cycle of chemotherapy. He didn't want to shave it - he just let it come away.

I don't have the words to describe how far away 'braving the shave' is from his lived experience.

All of it is bullshit. The no make-up selfie is another prime example. What, exactly, was it supposed to raise awareness of?

In answer to a previous poster - the amount of research into children's cancers is almost none existent. It's why I don't donate to cancer research.

I don't either. When the drugs are needed they're not available, particularly if you live the wrong side of the border (though still using the same currency to donate to the same charity).

@TwitterQueen1. Unfortunately I get it. I’m not brave. I’m not a warrior. I’m just trying to get through it to the best of my ability without boring my friends and family to death, while trying to stay alive. Someone else’s bald head does not make me feel any better. Don’t shave it on my account because it is meaningless.

YANBU. I am actually sick of this now, and sick of people in general who do stuff for 'charity' and crow about it all over social media.