People's Attitude Towards Cancer Patients

‘Tis a frail thing, life. It is all too easy to take it for granted, hoping that we will go on forever. Life can cause many irritations. It can throw things at you that you will feel you will never get over, only for you to somehow find the strength to do just that. We all lose people close to us; death is part of life, so to speak. But there is something so frightening about losing a parent. I lost my father to a stroke in March of this year. I was devastated, didn’t know how I could ever get through it all - but I managed. My mother has always been a strong character - bloody minded, some (including me) would say. She has always ...  Read the complete review

A little while ago, as I mentioned in another review on this subject, my mother was whisked into hospital where she under went an emergency operation. Within 7 hours of seeing her doctor on the Saturday morning, my mother was given a full hysterectomy, and a cyst the size of a watermelon was removed. You can probably imagine what was going through the family's minds? One week later, the test results came back. There was a seven-inch cancerous tumour attached to the cyst that they had removed, but it looked good. They were 99.9% certain that they had removed all of the cancer, but they had taken samples of some other organs whilst they were ...  Read the complete review

I'm approaching writing this op with some very strong feelings. Unlike others who've written in the cancer category so far, my experience is not of my own treatment for cancer, but that of my son who was a baby at the time. Sadly I think the prejudices and fears are much the same, and maybe, just maybe talking about them will help people not make the same mistakes that have been made on me and countless others. I think that 99% of the time people don't mean to be hurtful, but it hurts all the same. Maybe if enough of us speak out then slowly attitudes will change. I am changing my son's name for the purposes of this op as he hates me ...  Read the complete review

I've been trying to write another review on a book by Ruth Picardie, but like the one about John Diamond it just won't come out. So this one goes to the top again because I think I did say what I wanted to say. At the end you'll see the update I did previously shortly after John Diamond died. Apologies if you've read this already. I was going to write a review on John Diamond’s autobiography ‘C – Because Cowards Get Cancer Too’ – but it hasn’t quite turned out that way. It’s all about me, not John. I’m posting it anyway and half of me really wants you to read it but half of me really wants ...  Read the complete review

As some of you know, I was diagnosed with cancer in October 1999. My own attitude to my disease helped shape other people's attitudes to me, and this is what I want to get over in this article. It's gonna be another long one . . . so bear with me! I knew right from the start that I didn't want everyone to know what was wrong with me. The reasons for this were basically that I thought I wouldn't be able to handle the sympathy, the comments etc. I was concerned about other peoples reactions, and wanted to handle it on my own. I didn't want to be seen as brave or whatever, I just wanted to get on with it. My husband, bless ...  Read the complete review