What is National Share A Story Month?
With May comes the beginning of British sunshine, barbecues and ice-lollies but what some people don’t know is that May also brings National Share A Story month in the UK. Introduced to celebrate the power of story telling and encourage people of all ages to share their stories, May gives people the opportunity to reach out to people they might not have ever reached out to before.
Why Should I Share My Story?
A diagnosis of pancreatic cancer can cause lots of different emotions for patients, friends and families including worry, anxiety and fear. It’s easy to feel alone and overwhelmed but one way this can be helped is by reading about other people’s experiences who might have been through a similar situation.
One of the most amazing things you can do to help us during May is to share your experience with pancreatic cancer. Whether you’ve been diagnosed, received treatment, recovered or even supported someone with the disease; sharing your story is a powerful way to offer support to people that you might not even know. Hearing someone else’s story can make a huge difference to someone who might be facing pancreatic cancer or even encourage someone to learn about the disease for the first time.
We’d like to say a huge thank you to everybody who has already shared their story with us. To read our supporters’ stories, click here.
How Can I Share My Story?
There are two main ways you can share your story with us:
- You could become a Media Volunteer, someone who could be called upon by your local press or media to share your experience with pancreatic cancer. To find out more about becoming a media volunteer, click here.
- You can also share your story with us, via our website. We will ask your permission to then share your story with our supporters via social media and future campaigns.
Sharing your story can be difficult, but it is important to remember that you can share as little or as much of your story as you’d like. If you are having trouble getting started with writing your story, below are a few questions that you might like to answer:
- When was the diagnosis and were there any symptoms? Did anything help to relieve them?
- Were there any treatment options available?
- What support did you find especially helpful? For example, yoga, cooking or talking to a friend or therapist.
- Is there a key message you would like to get across? For example, ‘know the symptoms’, or ‘look after your body’ or ‘don’t ignore the signs’.