Harsh reallity

Hi Lils (lily0403) I must admit, I don't know the storyline you speak of, as I don't watch The Street however I do know what you mean because the only soap I watch sometimes is Emmerdale and a while ago one of the main characters was diagnosed with Malignant Melanoma, the same cancer I have. It certainly hit home harder than I expected but then he had the mole removed and that was it! My husband said they didn't tell it like it is because you only saw him at the hospital twice and as "we" know, at first it just seems like appointment after appointment and waiting 3 hours or so each time! I wonder have you noticed all the cancer adverts and Stand Up To Cancer programs that have been shown lately?  To be honest, if you don't watch Coronation

Street and your husband does, why not ask him to tape it and watch it when you are not there or have gone to bed? It's not worth putting yourself through the stress for a tv program!

You are right of course, until you have been in our position, you don't know how these things will affect you! So you were right to vent your feelings here! I've just read your profile. Apart from this, how are you doing with your treatment and how are your family coping?

Hi anndanv. My husband has decided to watch it when im out, but even he said it was difficult to watch it, he had to turn it off. He said it just makes him worry and it made him realise how fast and aggressive cancer can be.

My treatment is keeping me stable, i must admit i have been lucky as i only have tamoxifen, adcal and painkillers. I have results from a scan coming up on the 4th, but if anything was majorly wrong my onc would have phoned me by now. 

I hope your treatment is being good to you. 

I watch Corrie and can’t stop myself from watching the Sinead story and I did cry at all the emotion remembering how I felt when given bad news.

however they do manage the story with sensitivity and I am aware i have to plan for the end at sometime.

I'm not a Coronation Street watcher, but I do watch Eastenders - to throw a third soap into the mix! Lol

They have a cancer story going on at the moment, with a second one being brought in because of the first. They met at chemo. I'm finding that I'm fine with it and it's not affecting me at all. 

However I watched a film the other day called Mum's List, I think it was, and I was sobbing! 

Seems there's absolutely no rhyme or reason as to what affects me or not, but those emotions are sneaky, and come up on you unawares sometimes! 

Lass

Xx

Hi Lils

Ihaven't been around lately because my brother died so quickly, due to a ruptured aorta, so no chance of a comeback with that. A bit ironic, because his wife was in a coma for 2 weeks, almost a year ago. He thought he had lost her and was so upset.

Anyway, back to the topic in question. I don't watch any soaps these days at all. Growing up in Belfast, I always watched Coronation Street, almost from the beginning. After getting married, I didn't watch it much, I watched Eastenders and Holby City for years, then Eastenders became so miserable and smiles were as rare as hen's teeth. 

Because I have been living with my cancer diagnosis for 4½ years, cancer plots on the telly don't trouble me. But never say never!

I stopped watching Holby City when there was a miscarriage plot. My wife had a miscarriage in our first pregnancy and boy did that floor us! That was 39 years ago and there were no counselling sessions for fathers to be in those days. It was probably 20 or so years later when the Holby City plot was aired and I had a complete meltdown. I'm not sure I'm over it now, I can still picture my wife sobbing, both in pain and distraught with sadness. 

Wow, life can be full of low blows, but in between it's important to have a positive attitude and try to be happy and make others happy, either through actions or words

Love to all,

Tvman xx

Sorry to hear about your brother Tvman, that must have been an emotional time. Thank you all for sharing your experiences with me, i feel so much better now, but i knew i would after talking to you guys. Even though we have all got different cancers, yet we find ourselves in the same place. 

Sending good thoughts to you all. 

Hi

ive been watching Corrie and the sinead storyline has been a real eye opener for me as to how my husband must be feeling.  My hubby isn’t one for talking about our situation much so I dont really know how harsh it must be for him to listen to me going on about going into hospice etc.  This has definitely made me think twice about trying to make him talk about it.x

Hi lily0403

I tend only to watch comedy these days having lost the desire to watch people go through soapy misery. My girls and I watch Brooklyn 99 mostly. On repeat. I’ll admit it does sometimes make me want to claw my eyeballs out.

Isn’t it interesting how many cancer story lines there are in our soaps though? Some of them seem truer to life than others and I think those ones are probably a good thing on the whole as they shed light on our experiences, even if they can be hard for those of us in the cancer club to watch. 

But some are just stupid. There was a storyline in Casualty not so long ago where the senior A&E consultant had cancer and it was so unrealistic I had to laugh. 

Then there was the time, five years ago, when my 14-year-old piped up with “so mum. What stage is your cancer?” We were at a red traffic light at that moment. I told her it was stage 3. “Hmmm,” she says  “That’s not good, is it?” I explained that no it wasn’t but how did she know about cancer staging? “I saw it on Casualty,” she said. The lights changed. We drove on. 

Xx

Yes i knoq what you mean as anndanv said earlier with the malignant melanoma on emmerdale it was over and done with in two episodes.  Where as coronation street had had this you girl fighting with her emotions and fears about leaving her husband and child behind. I think it is because we have all got those fears that we feel them when we watch them. Well ive told my husband i will watch it again when the story line moves on. 

Happy thoughts to all. 

Yes i know what you mean as anndanv said earlier with the malignant melanoma on emmerdale it was over and done with in two episodes.  Where as coronation street had had this young girl fighting with her emotions and fears about leaving her husband and child behind. I think it is because we have all got those fears that we feel them when we watch them. Well ive told my husband i will watch it again when the story line moves on. 

Happy thoughts to all.