british heart foundation advert

[miggy]

Is it just me or is this advert really horrible and pointless(the one with children recovered from heart problems tortured by "chuckie" type dummies because they have a scar etc). I find it offensive to the point of switching off tv and just dont understand what its trying to say. Im sure they do great work and have donated in the past but this seems to just say we make children better but then they are miserable anyway so lets all be miserable-am I missing something here?

at the risk of starting something again - I too was made to feel uncomfortable about that ad but for a different reason - my little dd ( 10 months) has a zipper scar on her chest following two open heart surgeries and this ad made me realise that she may be affected in ways that I had never ever considered...ie emotionally from this scar on her body.

I think what they are trying to say is that after the physical healing comes the emotional healing. I wonder how the impact of her heart condition is going to affect dd later in life.. at this stage we are told her heart is operating as a 'normal' heart would. But the time will come when we as parents have to explain this scar on her.. which may prevent her from wearing the clothes she wants if she is self conscious about the scar( just one way she may be affected)

not sure this helps you understand the ad - just my humble perspective.

yes miggy , they are asking for money for psychological problems which might occur after the operation like teasing in the playground becuase they cant play tag, or a teenager ashamed of her scar

Haven't seen the ad, but my ds has a chest scar after heart surgery as a baby. Really hadn't thought of any emotional impact too, until now.

I completely see your point of view and my much younger cousin has similar scar (has faded lots in 10yrs though- so thats good news for your little one.) I just dont see why they have to make such a grim advert about it. I personally would be much more likely to reach for the credit card if they showed the work they were doing to improve childrens self esteem etc, followed by a credit card hotline.
I hope from your "starting something" comment you didnt think I was trying to be provocative? (could do much better job with children eating stolen grapes on their way to their private school in 4x4- after their Gina Ford power nap )I really wasnt. Just fed up of seeing the advert and wondered if I was the only one.

I haven't seen the ad but wanted to comment on scars.

I still bear the scars, albeit now faint, which were incurred as a result of pulling a teapot of boiling water over me when I was 2yo. I am now 35yo. I've lived with them all my life and I have never once been ashamed of them. DD has four scars on her abdomen as a result of her surgery and I hope she doesn't grow up afraid of them. Fortunately they are only about 1cm each.

Perhaps I'm odd but I've always been rather proud of my various scars. I do have a bit of a problem with a rather large freckle on my right thigh so I'm not entirely free of worry about blemishes.

Just to ramble on a bit more.... I hate ad campaigns which pull the guilty cord - I turn over or away and generally vow not to donate to that charity. I agree - emphasise the positive. Look at Bodyform, etc - do they waste money advertising their product by pointing out how miserable life would be if you didn't use Bodyform?

I thought the same thing too miggy and found the ad really offputting and sinister - can't really explain why. It actually made me hope my little nephew didn't see it. His scars are no big deal (well that's what I think - I can understand that he might well feel differently when he's old enough for that kind of thing); I think I was afraid that it might make him think negatively about his scars - kind of defeating the point surely?
I think the idea of raising money for this kind of treatment is really good of course, it was the ad itself that I found so offputting

I haven't seen this ad as obviously it isn't being shown in NZ but I just wanted to say something about scars ....
I taught a 9 year old girl once who was terribly proud of her scar .... it was a zipper one like Eidsvold describes from open heart surgery when she was a baby.
However her parents did to deal with it as she was growing older they did it the right way. Whenever someone mentioned it, when changing for PE or something she used to explain it really carefully, without embarrassment, about what had been wrong with her, how they fixed it and that if it wasn't for the op she would not be alive. She was an inspiration to me I have to say.
Once we went on a school trip to a Roman Museum and they had to go in costume ... at the end of the day they were all the girls were given Roman makeup and the boys were offered gruesome body paint to look like battle wounds (bit gruesome and a bit sexist I know ...) Well, this little girl didn't want the make up ... she asked them to make her scar look really horrible so that she could give her mum a laugh. They did it ... it poked over the top of her toga ... we, the teachers, were worried her mum might flip ... but no, mum thought it was and excellent joke ...
they were a fab family ... and like I say this girl was totally at one with it all ....

Major apologies for the appalling grammar in the last post!!

no i did not think you were being provacative at all miggy....

That is what I hope my dd will be able to do and that is the approach we hope to take - just explain to her abuot her condition and how she needed the operation to stay alive.. I want her to bear it proudly like the young lady you know Ghosty.

Do you think it makes a difference if the child has grown up with the scar? For your DD, Eidsvold, it will probably be no big deal as it is part of her and has always been there. I would imagine that problems occur when a child/teenager has something "done" to them that, in their mind, "spoils" their "perfect" body. (I don't mean that last bit to sound negative by the way). eg. I used to have a 1p sized mole on my neck which never bothered me in the slightest even though I was occasionally teased about it as a small child. I'm far more aware of the scar I got when a doctor insisted I have it removed in my early 20s.

Soupdragon - probably not .. considering the other prejudices she will have to face in her life.

But the ad did make me stop and think.....which I suppose is one of its purposes.

I haven't seen the ad, either, so can't comment on it but other children can be awful when it comes to scarring. My friend's dd has had two major abdominal ops, which involved cutting from one hip bone to the other and then from breast bone to pubes. She is also 'keloid' which means the scars become red and raised up by as much as in inch. Even the marks from where she had shunts and drips inserted reacted in this way. She also had a colostomy and was on steroids. When she eventually went back to school her life was made hell because of this physical change in her body. It didn't really stop until she left school and went to uni.

Just wanted to resurrect this as I saw something in the paper or a mag this week about Anastacia (the pop singer) and her suffering Crohn's. It showed a picture of her in a cropped top with quite a large scar across her stomach where she had an op. Must be a good example for anyone who has a scar.

I was looking up for more about her as I wrote this and I see she's had breast cancer too this year.