What would you say to cancer if you could? Share your thoughts and stories with us to celebrate Victoria Derbyshire's memoir Dear Cancer, Love Victoria - a copy of the book plus a £100 House of Fraser voucher to be won

[SorchaMumsnet]

Dear Cancer, Love Victoria is BBC journalist Victoria Derbyshire's moving and honest day-to-day account of life after her breast cancer diagnosis.

“I can't bear not to be with the three most important people in my life. I can't bear not to be there alongside Mark as my children grow up. My bright, funny, affectionate boys who are never embarrassed to say, ‘love you Mummy’, and say it 10 times a day.”

In 2015, much-loved and respected BBC journalist Victoria Derbyshire found herself in the news, with a devastating breast cancer diagnosis. She decided to live out her treatment and recovery in the spotlight of video diaries, that encouraged thousands to seek help.

Dear Cancer, Love Victoria: A Mum’s Diary of Hope shares Victoria's day-to-day experiences following her diagnosis. Wonderfully heartwarming and ultimately uplifting, this is a powerful account of a brave struggle told with courage and emotion, that will hopefully give strength to anyone touched by cancer.

Victoria's book is all about speaking openly and honestly about cancer, something that will probably sadly touch all of our lives at some point. We'd like to know: what would you write to cancer if you could, or simply - how has cancer has impacted your life? Share on this discussion thread for a chance to win a copy of the book and a £100 House of Fraser voucher.

Buy a copy of the book on Amazon

This discussion is sponsored by Orion Books and will end at midday on Wednesday 1 November

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Aye, I hate the words used around cancer.

My lovely fil passed and it used to upset me when people would say 'he'll beat it, he's a fighter...' long after we were told not to make any long term plans. It was almost as though him dying of cancer was due to a failing on his part.

It's a godawful disease and seeing it take everything my previously beer-drinking, pipe smoking, always laughing and joking, fiercely proud and marvellously optimistic father in law was, and what it's taken from the family broke my heart.

There's no monster to battle..n cancer isn't a fiend.... it is a illness, a disease, there was no 'battle' for my dad... he had an aggressive cancer that was stopping his body from functioning. He didn't 'lose a fight' as there was no fight.

We should be dealing with a disease that needs investigation to find cures,not some morbid romanticising of people being stolen away by the wicked fiend of cancer.

Sorry, hopenot too stupid sounding

WhatwouldLesleyDo - cardiovascular disease is the number 1 cause of death globally.

In our house it's just 'cancer's just shit isn't it?'

guest
Your post is the most stupid, offensive and ignorant that I have read on here. "A privileged way to die" Really? What utter, total, complete crap. I'm not even going to dignify your stupidity with a longer response.

guest2013 - what a spectacularly insensentive post. You may change your mind when you have witnessed other cancer deaths.

Absolutely it's been a privilege to struggle on a daily basis for the last year while my DH has been treated for cancer ........... NOT

I am so tired, trying to keep everyone together and normal

Right Cathy, but it’s still not the disease that the writer had.

guest I see where you’re coming from, but it really wasn’t an appropriate thing to say on a thread filled with people who have cancer or have a loved one who does.

I’m sorry about your dad, and I’m glad you feel he had a good death. Unfortunately many people are not comfortable when they are dying from cancer, and many people experience disturbing hallucinations and similar from morphine. In some ways perhaps it is a good way to die, but then again there is really no good way for a parent of young children to die, or indeed for a child to die.

I don’t know if you saw it at the time, but a few years back there was quite a controversial BMJ blog published by Richard Smith entitled Dying of cancer is the best death. There were various responses to it, including one on the Cancer Research UK blog.

It’s such an emotive subject with strong feelings on both side. When the article I mentioned was published, there were heated arguments about it in several online cancer groups that I’m in.

It’s something I ponder occasionally, and I feel entitled to an opinion on it as I have stage IV bowel cancer so unless treatments improve, I will be lucky to reach my 30th birthday.

I am grateful in some ways that I will get the chance to say goodbye. But the flip side is that I’m living in a strange limbo where I am not actually dying right now, but I know I will sooner rather than later. I can’t make long term plans. I also know that my family will have to watch as I slowly fade away, potentially in pain and distress. My cancer is in my lungs so I fear I will slowly suffocate. Who knows. In some ways I think perhaps it would be better to just drop dead one day with no warning, having been living my life normally up until that point.

I suppose it’s a pointless discussion really as it’s not something we have much control over!

I don't see why I can't voice my opinion. My Dad died very recently and I watched him die. It wasn't nice but it could've been worse. He could have driven to work one day after an argument and never come home. I feel I am able to comment on the issue after have a close family member live with cancer and die from it.
No one has to agree with me. We are all entitled to speak our minds, it's not insensitive as I am grieving, I have had close experience with cancer. Not just my Dad. This is a thread full of people living with cancer or have lost someone yes. But I am one of those people too.

I don't know how to answer this actuallly

In the Bad old days people died in wars , childbirth and tooth infection (to make a few)

Now we have managed these risks and instead we have this disease as the biggest killer

Had I been a few hundred years ago I would lose people to different things

I support a cancer charity and I pray that when my turn comes (1 in 3) that I can be cured

I think that demonising it and making it evil helps no one . It's a horrible illness but it's a fixed part of our lives now and the focus should be on providing the best support and education to the many people afflicted

I hope that doesn't sound callous / I just don't think demonising a disease helps

WhatwouldLesley - yes, I know what disease Victoria Derbyshire had. I'm wondering why there are no celebrity memoirs written about "battling" or "fighting" heart disease. Cancer is made out to be such a monster but cardiovascular disease is a bigger killer.

The title of this thread is daft. What would I say to cancer? Erm ... nothing because it can't hear or understand!

stop oddly I was thinking a similar thing earlier today. The “bad old days” weren’t even that long ago. In just a few generations we’ve developed the expectation of living a long, healthy ish life. Now disease and death are a huge shock to us. We feel entitled to good health and a long life. (I’m not saying that’s a bad thing.)

As you say, cancer is now a fact of life. It’s unlikely anyone will be unaffected by it at all. Demonising it and fearing it won’t help. It’s not an outside evil that we can fight off. It’s just our own cells going a bit haywire.

We had a few years didn't we after WW2 ? When they introduced the NHS, and then cancer seemed to spiral

Maybe it was always there and people just died of other things first ?

Maybe the industrial advances and increase in chemicals aggravated it...

That said my children asked me what my super power would be and my immediate answer was to cure cancer for children . So I am a bit soppy

I’m sure it’s only a matter of time. BHF seem to be using “fighting” talk about heart disease now. There was a celeb who had heart disease and wrote a recipe book, and I saw a Pippa Middleton book in the BHF the other day

Do you have heart disease yourself? my dad does/did

guest2013 Cancer is not and never will be a privileged way of dying. You seem to forget babies and children dying after suffering atrocious pain.

My dear friend C. died in despair leaving behind a 10 y daughter. She was a single mum, and she was so worried, scarred who would look after her D,D, what would become of her, who would be there for her. She was 35 and cancer robbed her from building the memories you mention. Her last months were not happy, but dark, black, filled with anguish and nothing we could say or do made a difference .

And I reckon you haven't seen "Stop the Horror" . Not everyone had the happy-comfy-chair high as a kite death. For some, morphine doesn't work.

guest2013 you can voice your opinion and share your views but a more attentive choice of words would have been more sensitive.
"Cancer, a privileged way of dying", is an insult.

KIng I am sorry about your friend . Those things never leave you do they ? My friend also died young and I was very traumatised about her passing and her final months too .

But she didn't have kids of her own 🙏🏼 And we are grateful for that

I couldn't have put it better than reallyanotherone.

I also find the anthropomorphising and the urging for brave struggles to be counterproductive for many who suffer through cancer and then simply die.

My father didn't have a brave struggle. He just endured his sufferings with forebearance until he died from renal failure.

same here, we never used the battle or fight term with my dad

and he also endured his sufferings with forebearance (sob) and fortunately he had a cancer where the death was gentler than some

here's the thing there is no right opinion, we ALL have lost someone we love to cancer, we all will.

its only here on MN we have can have a sensible discussion about the shitty language we use around cancer, maybe people think it in RL but wont say it?

there is also the culture of fear, whilst many people die from it, a lot of people don't and then go on with their lives.

and what people never seem to discuss is the long term disability, its like you SURVIVE or you LOSE THE BATTLE

there appears to be widespread lack of acknowledgement of people who have had it but are disabled after, have chronic pain, lose function of certain aspects of their body, etc

There is one thing that would have helped my father rather than urging him to battle bravely or to anthropomorphise the cancer. That would have been for him to have had the awareness to have taken his symptoms to the doctor earlier. That might have bought him a decade. Being of the "mustn't grumble" generation served him well until the point came when he needed to grumble.

This episode of Desert Island Discs might be of interest. The castaway is Siddhartha Mukherjee a cancer specialist who wrote a book about the disease called The Emperor of All Maladies His music choices are awful but he has an interesting take on cancer and treatment.

WhatwouldLesley

It's an interesting book Cathy. It's exactly four years today since my diagnosis of Stage 4 breast cancer in both breasts. Both my dad's Mum and Grandmother were dead by then. I was 36.
Lots more people are living with cancer. Palliative care needs improved though.

You make me miserable beyond belief. GO.

Argh - stage 3. Don't want to be wishing stage 4 upon myself!