Nuevas implicaciones de la 5-LO 1 Proliferación celular y cáncer

connectedness. The images are of busy domestic lives and invoke concepts of friendship, love, belongingness and enjoyment. They demonstrate LwBBC is not experienced in a cancer vacuum. Four out of seven participants in the photo-production study, showed emotional

57 _{Connectedness occurs when ‘a person is actively involved with another person, object, group, or environment}

and that involvement promotes a sense of comfort, well-being and anxiety-reduction’ (Hagerty, Lynch-Sauer, Patusky & Bouwsema, 1992, p. 293).

135 connectedness as occurring within physical spaces by including photographs taken at home, at their hairdressers, in the nail bar and at a children’s party. These facilitated conversations around both positive and negative experiences of emotional connectedness with others.

Figure 7-13 Signs and symbols provided of emotional connectedness

© Jo Taylor - abcdiagnosis / 10.12.15 / University of Salford / Cathy Ure; © Wendy Northway /28.04.16/ University of Salford / Cathy Ure; © Michelle Mullany / 03.03.16 / University of Salford / Cathy Ure; © Michelle / 29.02.16/ University of Salford / Cathy Ure; © Nicola /19.03.16 / University of Salford/ Cathy Ure

For instance, some women’s use of social media for emotional support were embedded within stories of disconnection. In the photo elicitation interviews Millie, Delly and Sheena talked of family members who ‘didn’t want to know’ (Delly) when they were receiving treatment:

‘they’ve [members of partner’s family] been very dismissive. Not interested. Not even visited. Didn’t come to hospital. Asked me when I came out of hospital where I’d been!’ (Photo-elicitation: Sheena).

The extracts below juxtapose the contrasting experiences of disconnection and connection: ‘I don’t think my [family member] could really cope. He can’t cope

with illnesses anyway so, because he kept a low profile… Yes, when I was in hospital he didn’t want to really come and see me’(Photo- elicitation: Millie)

‘So we can meet. An hour’s drive and we can meet, meet for a coffee or lunch or something, which again is nice as you can talk; you’ve

136 got that common bond between us. So that’s where Flat Friends

came in’ (Photo-elicitation: Millie).

Millie experienced other people’s responses to her diagnosis, treatment and surgery as both disconnecting and connecting. She gained a sense of belonging58 from platform use. She states that social media enables connection with women who share a ‘common bond’ – having had breast cancer and now living ‘flat’ post-surgery (women she has met through the Facebook Flat Friends group). The degree of intimacy and sense of proximity gained through sharing experiences of LwBBC in closed private spaces frequently leads to ‘meet ups’ or ‘coffee’ or ‘lunch’, indicating supportive relationships moving offline. Michelle J, Michelle M, Kirsty, Nicola, Sarah M, Delphi and Jayne all talked about group ‘meet ups’. This absence of boundaries between online and offline life through ‘meeting up’ was also identified by Harkin (2016) with regard to cancer Facebook groups.

In contrast, Sarah J uses social media to navigate existing friendships complicated by her experiences of breast cancer. Sarah felt disconnected from friends when interacting face to face:

‘when I’m talking about things which I kind of wanted to talk about face to face, people feel a bit uncomfortable or people seem like they feel a bit uncomfortable like they don’t know what to say or they’re like you know, ‘are you sure you want to talk about this’ and I’m making jokes, but they just don’t; they’re not responding very well to it’ (Photo-elicitation: Sarah J)

Sarah experienced resistance when engaging in face to face dialogue about her experiences describing people as ‘uncomfortable’ and questioning her when she is ‘talking about things’ by asking ‘are you sure you want to talk about this?’. In response, she adopted WhatsApp as an alternative arena for talking predominately to friends about her cancer. She warrants mediation through technology as providing space within the relationship for the provision and receipt of more helpful supportive exchanges:

‘I think it’s harder for people face to face to know what to say when you are having a conversation whereas when you say something on social media, because you have a bit more time to think about things you can give like more rounded responses rather than just saying what comes out of your mouth’ (Photo-elicitation: Sarah J)

137 Sarah J leverages existing groups of friends on WhatsApp to gain support, through chatting about ‘my breast cancer’ as part and parcel of every day conversation, in a way that echoes offline relationships (Aharony, 2015). This approach is experienced as less challenging than updating friends face to face. David and Cambre’s (2016) work on Tinder suggests simple application interfaces are experienced as less intimidating than face to face encounters. Technological advancement, in the development of simple application interfaces, provides women with more choice and flexibility in how they can draw on the supportive resources of family and friends. This enables ‘mediated intimacy’ (Vetere et al., 2005, cited in David & Cambre (2016) which supports the maintenance of social capital. WhatsApp acts as an arena where individual actors (Goffman, 1959) can craft their lines and reflect on their

‘performance’ before sending messages. Sarah uses it to sustain and nurture her friendships which are tested by her diagnosis.

While Sarah used WhatsApp to help manage her interactions with friends and family, other women use social media to help navigate feelings of disconnection created by friends and families’ unhelpful comments:

‘Oh you’ve got breast cancer, Oh you’ll be fine though because it’s so good these days’ (Photo-production: Kirsty)

'Oh, er well, you know you'll get a boob job' (Photo-production: Michelle M)

‘sent it via Messenger I think, and I know they were trying to help and they'd put this - I think it was a picture in Grazia or something of supermodels - all with their shaved heads and gone look 'you know, you'll be in fashion if ever you need a buzz cut anyway' (Photo- production: Michelle M)

‘and then people are going 'Oh, Angelina Jolie did it so it’s alright isn't it' (Photo-production: Michelle M)

‘Oh, your cancer’s gone now, get over it. Carry on with your life’ (Photo-elicitation: Jojo).

‘Like the other day I’d done a WhatsApp to them, just to two of them. And said my head has been so sore, I really hope it’s not…[secondary breast cancer]’I’m just going to punch you, they call me Lecky, because that’s my maiden name. Lecky I’m going to punch you when I see you if you keep saying that. It’s not in your head. You’re stressing yourself out. Get a grip’ (Photo-production: Michelle J).

138 These ‘supportive’ comments are experienced as disconnecting. They ‘trivialise’ (Michelle M) experiences of hair loss and mastectomy (Michelle M) and the ongoing physical and emotional impact (Jojo; Michelle J). They draw inappropriately on media representations such as ‘the Angelina Jolie effect’ (Borzekowski, Guan, Smith, Erby & Roter, 2013; Evans et al., 2014) and being ‘chemo chic’ (Michelle M). They convey the impression that breast cancer is ‘a passing inconvenience’ (Sulik, 2013, p.698). This ‘trivialising’ also assumes women LwBBC are positive recipients of medical progress – ‘it’s so good these days’. For some, a diagnosis of breast cancer appears to have been reduced inadvertently to a ‘boob job’. These comments shift away from focusing on the potential consequences of ill health for someone diagnosed with breast cancer, to one ‘informed’ by consumerism and the body project59_{. They demonstrate the differences in experiences and knowledge between women}

‘that know’ and women who cannot know what it is like LwBBC. Women LwBBC suggest that outside of the breast cancer community there is limited expression of empathy in relation to the ongoing emotional, psychological and physical effects women encounter. Michelle used Figure 7-14; images 9 and10 to convey the sense of meaningless chatter, as she contemplated loss of a breast:

© Michelle Mullany / 03.03.16 / University of Salford / Cathy Ure

‘people just saying like really unhelpful things. And just that they, just need to shut their mouth’ (Photo-production: Michelle M)

59 _{Body projects are attempts to construct and maintain a coherent and viable sense of self-identity through}

attention to the body, particularly the body's surface (Featherstone. 1991)

139 She signals a desire to speak out, to silence those – ‘shut their mouth’ - who trivialise her experience and create unwelcome anxiety. Michelle took this photograph to portray visually and through telling her story the sense of disconnection felt when people speak without thinking about the impact their words have on others - ‘you just want to punch people in the face sometimes’ (Michelle M). Michelle withholds from vocalising these thoughts, excusing people’s comments as being unintentionally unhelpful:

‘I’ve not ranted at anyone. I’ve not said anything back you know or got angry with anybody because I know they don’t mean anything by it’ (Photo-production: Michelle M).

This sense of frustration at silencing how she is experiencing living with cancer echoes the experiences of breast cancer bloggers identified by Ure (2014).

7.3.3 Social media supports intimate, emotional connection with strong and weak ties