Macmillan Case Study
Once my treatment was over, I didn’t feel like I wanted to just ‘put it all to bed now’ or ‘shut the box’ on Cancer. Mainly because I felt the security blanket, I’d had around me for so long, was still required. I struggled with anxiety, and 5 months after hospital treatment had finished and I started my 5-10-year course of Tamoxifen, things got too much for me and I had a breakdown.
It was like the past year had caught up with me and decided that it wasn’t going to let me ‘get back to normal’, because my old normal no longer existed. I, however, was convincing myself otherwise. And failing.
Reading Macmillan forum threads helped in the respect of reading other people were feeling the same as I was, and I found myself looking at the ‘Getting in Touch’ section. I’d recently written a post for my personal profile on Facebook for my one year ‘cancerversary’, and had such an amazing response to that piece of writing, someone recommended I send it to Macmillan.
My email and Facebook post were picked up by a lovely lady called Rebecca, who worked on the Case Studies Team. She said how she really enjoyed reading my post, particularly about the aftermath. The case studies were people living with or affected by cancer, who shared their stories to spread awareness and help as many people as possible during their cancer experience – patients, carers, families and communities.
Rebecca asked if I could share more detail about my experience and how Macmillan helped me and asked if I could complete their ‘Tell Us Your Story’ form.
Oooh another form to fill in! I thought, excitedly. See – I’m a ‘form-filler-inner’.
I tried to summarise my story (I’m a waffler – that was REALLY hard!) and returned the form back. I then had a phone call with Rebecca to discuss my story and how Macmillan had helped me. I submitted a couple of photos and of the children too, as there were a couple of things coming up that, if relevant, I could be involved in, but not promising of course.
I felt really uplifted.
a) my story was interesting; b) my story could help others and c) that my face and story could be on the Internet associated with Macmillan.
Oh. Hang on…that bit filled me with dread – my face on a website??
Well a few months passed and then I had a rather exciting email. Rebecca was in touch again saying that they had an opportunity they hoped I might be interested in.
Their biggest fundraiser, the World’s Biggest Coffee Morning, was going to be launched for that year in September. They had produced a TV advert, where a young boy wants to hold a coffee morning for his mum, because his mum has cancer. To go along with the advert, to be featured in their PR material and Macmillan Website, they wanted a real-life family to be involved and wondered if my Son and I would be interested.
They would need to take some professional photos for the website, and come to my home for this, together with a few quotes from both of us about the impact cancer has had on both of us.
Oh. My. God. Really?? I’d never done ANYTHING like that before. My Son, who was 13 at the time jumped at the opportunity when I spoke to him, so it was a Yes from Us!!
Macmillan Coffee Morning Campaign 2018
It was Half Term at the end of May when my Son Jack and I had a visit from Rebecca, a member of the Coffee Morning promotional team, Nick plus a photographer. I’d tidied the house so much it was unrecognisable to the family.
Thankfully 5-month old kittens at the time, hadn’t wrecked too much in the house except for the net curtains, which now had some holes appearing where the little devils liked to hang on them.
Oh – and the oven door broke the day before Macmillan came… the idea was to bake and decorate this luscious cake and have some photos taken of Jack and I doing this, so I frantically called Rebecca and she said not to worry – it would all be taken care of.
Well at least they wouldn’t have any of my burnt offerings they’d have to photo-shop, I suppose!
We sat chatting with them, and the photographer said to just ignore he was there. All day, he would snap away and hopefully get some nice shots.
My daughter was quite put out that she wasn’t going to be photographed all day, but they did include her for some pictures, and she was happy. Then she got a bit bored and left us to it. As 10 year olds do…
We had a lot of fun, and really enjoyed their company. They stayed all day with us, and they said they felt quite at home with us – there are no airs and graces with us!
A few weeks later, they got back in touch with us and said that they are going to use a couple of the photos on the website to promote the Coffee Morning, and also one for their early promotional postal flyers. We were so pleased, and humbled that Macmillan used us in their campaign and for the ‘Why We Do It’ page of their website.