Sick to death of hearing about people's cancer

[MiserableCow2022]

I've name changed for this one because I'm pretty sure I'm going to get massive abuse for it but I'm a regular poster.
What the title says, I am sick to death of everybody and their brothers cancer or other appalling disease being postered up in every magazine and newspaper all of the time with week by week progress of their dying. This morning headline news was another "celeb" and her cancer.
I feel sorry for her, I'm not a monster but that's for her and her family to deal with it isn't headline news.
I've had a terrible sad life with lots of abuse and illness and I've lost no less than 9 lovely people who were very close to me over the last three years so I've had loads of grief too on top of my own health problems which I choose not to broadcast to the nation or go on about on mumsnet or facebook.
Isn't life just shit enough for everyone now without reading about people's terminal illnesses every single day - it's enough to make you want to just end it all.
I don't find people like bowelbabe inspiring, she is gone and her children are motherless and we all had to watch her dying and shrinking bit by bit, nor do I find Sarah Beany's bald head refreshing or inspiring.
I just wish they could just keep it it to themselves and their families.
Everytime I look at the papers I think it's going to be me next.
When I grew up people with a terminal illness just got on with it and retreated into the bosom of their families to die and I wish they would do that now. That is certainly what I am going to do.
People will be informed of my terminal decline only after I've gone. I have no intention of rubbing their noses in it everyday.
I want to die with dignity away from the public gaze and not drag anyone else down with me.
I think part of the reason people do the public thing is because they are terrified of dying and can't accept it and going public distracts them.
AIBU?

My Dad is terminally ill with cancer, and I'm doing my best to limit my exposure to media about it as it's just too hard.

I get it op.

I've lost 5 close family members in 5 years to various cancers. I'm bored shitless of "celebs" and their brave battles and paid stories about it.

I get this too, I feel sorry for them but pp who have commented that things are slightly easier with money are right. Her kids I'm sure would not agree

I agree, OP. Many of us have quite enough of it among friends and/or relations, we really do not want to be bombarded with it everywhere else.

There was a time when every time I happened to be listening to Woman’s Hour, they were banging on about cancer. I had recently lost both my Mil and my DF to the same cancer, within 6 months of each other.

Around the same time I picked up a Joanna Trollope novel in a bookshop, skimmed the first page of so - and bought it - purely because the main character has switched off Woman’s Hour in the car because yet again they were banging on about cancer!

No celeb cancer stories in The Guardian. No celeb stories at all if you tailor the app.

I do think there’s an issue with algorithms forcing stuff onto you because there’s a crossover with things you read. Twitter has basically become unusable for me at the minute because I interacted with other widows and now a good half of the posts it shows me are about people’s partners or kids dying. And lots of people whose partners are dying talking about how horrifying it is that they’re going to be widowed. Why would I want to hear about how terrible it is to be the thing I am?! So I can totally imagine that if you’re getting celebrity cancer stories pushed at you in the same way then it would feel too much.

She didn't really have a choice when the production team made her hear about it by phone whilst the cameras were rolling, though, did she?

Bet they made more from that than she made for her sons afterwards.

It’s not about raising awareness of cancer itself, it’s about raising awareness of the symptoms. People like Deborah James consistently hammered home the message about checking your poo, she has helped raise awareness and save lives. Bill Turnbull did the same for raising awareness of the symptoms of prostate cancer.

I don’t know about Sarah Beeny, but just don’t read stuff if you’re not interested. I really don’t see the problem.

I hear you OP.

Just done a quick list.

In my adult lifetime I have lost my Step-dad, my Mum, my Grandmother, two aunts, a close friend and this year my DP to cancer.

My Mum forbade any public announcements or social media interaction on the subject - you could measure her stiff upper lip with a ruler. Her last year was shit. Chemo prolonged her life but the quality was crap.

My DP was diagnosed post mortem - sudden collapse due to brain bleeds was due to oesophageal cancer that had spread to his lungs, liver and brain virtually symptomlessly.

My Dad lives with splenic lymphoma.

Since DP died in January, one of our friendship group lost his partner to breast cancer. One of my close friends is currently being treated for breast cancer and is being stoic and low key informative on social media in case it helps someone else.

Another, younger friend was diagnosed with lymphoma last year, and went the whole public head shave and fund raising route which we supported her with. Obviously her situation was terrible but she’s now in remission. But it now utterly defines her. In the aftermath of losing my DP I had to make every allowance for her under the sun no matter how intrusive or insensitive her words or actions “because cancer”. When she told us about her diagnosis, which was about a year after my Mum died, she said at least when old people get cancer, they’ve had a life. Not untrue, but just a touch insensitive.

So I feel I can’t move for cancer at the moment. I’m unpleasantly cold about it.

Those in the public eye who “raise awareness” - good luck to them I suppose, but for the average person, being made to feel one should be upbeat and positive in such a hideous situation as a sufferer or a supporter, can be a real struggle.

When I think of how my Mum suffered in her last two months at the beginning of lockdown because all her support, bar district nurses coming to change her drains, my blood boils.

When I hear about people diagnosed too late because early signs were dismissed as neurosis, (close friend and Step-Dad) I want to know exactly what all this awareness raising achieves? It’s a lottery for alot of people.

I remember being so shocked when Helen McCrory died - I’m not one to cry over celebrities, but that made me howl as it wasn’t long after my Mum. I remember my DP comforting me - he was probably in the early stages of his cancer then. And we never knew.

I think it’s a mixed bag.

But if the new statistic is one in two likely to get cancer now, we’re just going to see more and more of it. And what is really needed is better support for both sufferers and their families, not just health wise, but emotional and financial, because if you’re not wealthy, it turns everything upside down.

Sorry for the ramble - it’s just something I can’t get away from at the moment. But if I get it (although I’ve had pre-emotive risk surgery to remove my ovaries) I will want it to be low key and private. And what will be will be.

Thoughts with anyone else in the shitty club xxxx

I do understand OP.
However. A friend who was diagnosed with BC as I was being treated for it started a charity to bring awareness about secondary breast cancer as it attracts so much less funding than primary. She has since died but the charity is still going strong and has raised a huge amount of money for research.
In my own case, I was 36 and 8 weeks post partum when diagnosed and was fobbed off by my GP. It was a friend who is also a GP who pushed me to keep going back.
I shouted it from the rooftops as I didn't want any other young women to be ignored.
Two of my GP friends have since referred other young women with atypical presentation who have turned out to have cancer.

I totally agree that when you read these stories in the news over and over, it can have a real effect on your mental health and stirs up all kinds of fears and anxieties about the future. At the same time though, how can anyone predict how they'd react if they were given a terminal diagnosis?

Most people want to feel that their life has some kind of meaning, especially if it's going to end early. Everyone decides that meaning in their own way, and I can easily see how awareness-raising might be part of it.

I definitely think that in some cases it's really helpful, people highlighting symptoms and how common cancer is.

I really struggle seeing women in their 30s with young children dying of cancer. I have bad anxiety about it

You don't get a lot of this stuff in the Guardian maybe change your media feeds.

@Benjispruce4 should have read the whole thread !!

My DM had breast cancer and she HATED the October campaigns that stopped her reading her favourite magazines and all the poster campaigns in the bus shelter when she was going for a day out shopping. She said there was no chance of forgetting. Same goes for ‘mental health’ awareness. It’s saturation.

I lost my dad to lung cancer. He was a heavy smoker. I wish he had done a campaign like Bowelbabe's warning people not to smoke. He did not have an easy death and went way before his time.

I think it's difficult right now when things are bleak all round, and when for a lot of people their MH is already fragile. It is pointless constantly filling everyone with fear and dread. I find the adverts far worse tbh, because with celebs well that's up to the individual, and if it helps them then fine, but the constant bombardment with ads, which are often shocking and profoundly depressing, I think does nothing for people's MH and must be very triggering to many. Likewise clickbait articles.

I agree about that advert of the boy looking in the mirror. We had lost our mother far too young and it was devastating. I complained to Cancer Research, I'm almost sure it was them. It was agonising for children to see.

I agree. YANBU, OP.
For me, the lockdowns and the daily trotting out of numbers (like a morbid variety of war dispatches) were intolerable and have caused major damage. Having lost my mother to cancer, I quickly developed a panic of losing my dad to covid. I am now struggling with an obsession on death, sickness, loss. I don't go out much.
Public dying-by-inches is a huge trigger for me.

I think on the whole I agree with you.

I suppose on one level they are looking out for their family and trying to earn as much money as they can while they can. Like a previous poster said, getting to own the narrative and dictate the story rather than being papped whilst looking ill. Might as well have a glam photo shoot and get paid for it than risk the story leaking out.

I am reminded of the dignity shown by Helen McCrory. Obviously at that level of fame money doesn’t come into. She managed to be visible to near the end raising money during lockdown, without mentioning her illness.

I'm really sorry about your father. I lost my Dad to lung cancer too ... 11 years ago. He made attempts give up all through my life, probably starting in about 1969, because he knew about the risk of lung cancer. The truth was coming out in the 1950s. All my aunts and uncles gave up in the 1960s and 70s. I really don't think anyone now needs educating about smoking/lung cancer risk.

Oh yes, fucking algorithms…..

I had to do a lot of social media as DP was relatively “well known” in our area and had 3000 odd friends worldwide so I couldn’t get away with avoiding it, especially for organising the funeral.

My feed was full of what sort of funeral do you want, funeral plans, life insurance, memorial stones, memorial jewellery……

Then it was full of finding love again dating for the over 50s.

Currently I’m getting a lot of grief counselling and bereavement services. And cancer charities.

Thanks Facebook but I’m perfectly capable of managing this nightmare and my nervous breakdown myself …… 🙄

I feel the same way. Had a friend whose teenage grandson got cancer and it affected his brain and ability to speak and she thought it appropriate to post pathetic pictures of him IN HIS DIAPER while she begged for money for treatment. I’m pretty sure if her 14 year old grandson could speak for himself he would not want everyone on facebook seeing him withering away in a diaper. Idiots.

Sorry I know that last post was harsh but I was friends with him and it was horrifying seeing him that way and her lack of care for his dignity deeply upset me.

Maybe it’s the papers I read (Guardian and Times paper not online) but I don’t find these stories.
Yanbu not to want to watch. Equally well known people aren’t unreasonable to deal with things how they choose as certain media will pick up on it whether they like it or not.