Community News - Macmillan Online Community

Cancer and Covid- Ruth's Story

October is Breast cancer awareness month and to mark this, Ruth sharing her cancer experience of being diagnosed with Breast cancer during the Coronavirus pandemic. Ruth talking about becoming a mum and being diagnosed, all during a national lockdown. I never thought I would be diagnosed with breast cancer, at 32, with a 7-week-old baby. I also never thought that I would be on my own when I heard those fateful words. But thanks to Covid and a nationwide lockdown, I was. I had found a lump in my breast whilst pregnant but thought it was due to the changes my body was going through anyway. However, after my daughter was born, the lump was still there. I also had problems breastfeeding on that side, so I decided to go to the GP to get it checked out. By this point, I was more worried about…

Megan- Online Community Team
Fixes and issues - an update for members, October 2020

In this blog, you’ll find some more updates about issues and fixes on the Community. We’d like to say a huge thank you for your continued support and patience at this time. We’re still working really hard behind the scenes and resolving issues as fast as we can. If you’re continuing to experience problems on the site then please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us on community@macmillan.org.uk . We also have our help pages which have step by step guides on using the Community, if you feel you might need some extra support. Reply button not fully responsive This is an issue where users are selecting the ‘reply’ button in a thread and the reply box doesn’t always appear. It looks like this: Where normally, a reply should look like this: This issue is intermittent, and does not…

Ellen - Macmillan
'What grief has taught me' by Melanie - Vol 2 'The problem with looking too far ahead'

In today’s Community News Blog we have the second volume of our guest blog series, ‘What Grief has taught me’ by Community member MelanieL. Melanie has been a member of the Community and a contributor to the Prostate cancer , Carers only and Bereaved spouses and partners discussion groups for a long time. Melanie lost her husband Paul to an advanced form of prostate cancer in May of 2018. In this series Melanie explains what she has learned in her journey through bereavement so far, in the hope that it will be of help to many. If you missed Vol 1 of Melanie's blog, 'The ever changing journey of my grief', you can click here to read it. Vol 2 - The problem with looking too far ahead I have learned that it is important not to look too far ahead and not to think too much about the future.…

Former Member
Mental Health Check in

It was World Mental Health Day on Sunday 10 th October. Since then, there have been many conversations about our mental health. The Community is a place for these conversations to continue alongside being a source of support. Our Mental health and wellbeing are just as important as our physical health, so we should take the time to understand how we are feeling, and how we can look after ourselves. “Sorry about my long post, it's made me feel a little better to actually type this all out though and see it in print.” moosiemoo , Supporting someone with Incurable cancer forum “ I just feel like I need to voice my feelings, and this seems a safe place to do so.” Sunflower1988 , Follicular lymphoma forum “My biggest distraction is my family, looking after my boys, and enjoying conversations…

Megan- Online Community Team
Cancer & Me 35 Years On Vol 5 - Jolly Hockey Sticks!

Today in our Community News blog Willo is back with the fifth instalment of her guest blog series called ‘Cancer & me 35 years on’ . In this series, Willo, known on the Community as patsyann85 , tells us about her experience of being diagnosed with Anal cancer in 1986 while living in Zambia. We will be sharing more of Willo’s writing and incredible artwork throughout the next few months in the Community News . If you missed Vol 4 – Brachytherapy you can click here to catch up. 'For almost a week the caesium needles were sewn into position and I was becoming quite badly burnt and the sickly sweet smell of burning flesh was very noticeable. As the deadline for removal approached I became more and more sore and very scared, as I have good healing skin and anticipated it being difficult and painful…

Former Member
Where do you find support online?

Hi everyone, It's Eliza from the Community team. Finding the right support for you when you're going through an experience with cancer is really important. We're interested to know whether you use other support groups outside the Online Community. You'll see the poll below this post, where you can vote to let us know. Making the Online Community better for you is at the heart of everything we do. If you'd like to talk to us to offer feedback about the Online Community, please remember you can email the Community team at any time at community@macmillan.org.uk .

Eliza -Online Community Team
Talking about cancer - Vol 1 - Debbie

Speaking about a cancer experience can help you and others, here on the Community the power of shared experience is all around us: ‘It really is reassuring to know others have trodden the path I am fearing to tread… It makes me feel I am not alone in this.’ - mamachimp Thank you for sharing your personal story…I’m feeling much more supported and not alone. Thank you so much for taking the time to sharing your thoughts, I find them incredibly motivating.’ - Jatz But what about sharing your experiences more publicly? Today we are starting a new miniseries about how some of our Community members found speaking to the press about their cancer experience. Debbie is our first guest blogger of the series and is sharing her experience of speaking to ITV Channel Island News about her Bowel cancer…

Former Member
A period of change

This month we start to see the changes from Summer to Autumn. We know this happens every year but unexpected changes like a new symptom, side effect or waiting for test results, can bring a lot of uncertainty and make us feel uneasy. We often discuss change on the Community. How we see change depends on who we are and our current situation. It may be forced upon us or something we are expecting, but either way we have to adjust. What we see on the Community is how you respond to change matters. You may not be able to control what is happening to you, but you can control how you react. Being there to help each other can be comforting and empowering. “People have different coping strategies. I very much wanted to know as much as possible from reliable sources so I could make informed choices…

Megan- Online Community Team
Fixes and issues - an update for members, September 2020

Hi everyone, We want to say a huge thank you for your continued feedback and your patience since we upgraded the Community. We have been escalating all issues that have been reported and we are listening to all of the feedback we’re receiving. It has been really helpful for us to understand how you feel the site is working and what we can do to improve. We know the Community is a lifeline for many of our members and we know how important it is to be able to reach out to get support. Below is an update on where we are with some of the issues on the site. If you have any questions about the below then please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us on community@macmillan.org.uk . 1. Email notifications temporarily disabled Last week, we had to temporarily disable email notifications…

Ellen - Macmillan
Signatures are back

Hi everyone, We are happy to say that signatures will be back on the forum. We know how important these are for our members and we received a lot of feedback from you telling us you'd like to see them underneath each of the posts you make. Signatures will now appear underneath every reply, but not underneath the original post (the post that starts the thread). This is the only way we can configure signatures in the new platform. We're happy to have these back up and running on the site and we'll look to release this at 1pm. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to the team on community@macmillan.org.uk Best wishes, Ellen

Ellen - Macmillan
Temporarily disabled email notifications

Hi everyone, Last week, we used a feature to send an email notification to all members to let them know about our update on the site upgrade . You may have seen the below email in your inbox: Unfortunately, due to a technical glitch, this email is being sent to users multiple times. Because of this, we have had to temporarily disable email notifications from the Community. This means users will not receive any email notifications from the Community. We have raised this as a critical issue and this is being looked into as a priority. We're really sorry for any inconvenience this has caused and we hope to have email notifications up and running shortly.

Ellen - Macmillan
Viewing groups - which do you prefer?

Hi everyone, It’s Ellen here from the Community team. We are hoping to get your thoughts on a change we are thinking of making to the way you currently view groups. We’re looking at making this change based on some of the feedback we’re seeing across the site, and within the feedback survey. You’ll see a poll below this post, where you can vote for what you like best. Currently, when you go to your group, you see a list of discussion titles. This is shown in picture A below. This view allows users to see the title of the discussion, but they need to click into the discussion to see any of the posts there. The other option we have is to change this view so that when you go to your group, you see the latest activity within the group. This is shown in picture B below. This view allows…

Ellen - Macmillan

Awake and up all night?

We know that cancer can sometimes cause sleepless nights. Join our Cancer Chat forum for some company here in the 'Awake and up all night' thread.

Additional content from Macmillan

Access cancer information and more stories from around Macmillan.

Cancer stories and resources

Get further support from our Men and Cancer campaign:

Find the words to talk about cancer