NET Cancer Day Archives - Ronny Allan - Living with Neuroendocrine Neoplasms

01Apr 2017 by Ronny Allan 1 Comment

NETwork with Ronny © – Newsletter March 2017

Awareness, Living with Neuroendocrine Cancer, Patient Advocacy, Survivorship, Treatment

Hi NETworkers! Welcome to my fifth 'community' newsletter, the monthly summary of NET news, views and ICYMI (in case you missed it!). The highlight of the month was my attendance at the first ever Joint Patient-Physician symposium at ENETS Barcelona. I remain thankful to INCA for the honour of attending and for the experience that came with it. It was also great to finally meet other NET advocates face to face for the first time. Some of them have been great supporters since the inception of my blog and community. [caption width="500" id="attachment_9598" align="aligncenter"] with Grace Goldstein from Carcinoid Cancer Foundation[/caption] March was a slower month in blogging terms due to a number of external projects and a continuing flow of private messages. I don't have an issue with private contact…

01Mar 2017 by Ronny Allan 9 Comments

NETwork with Ronny © – Newsletter February 2017

Awareness, Living with Neuroendocrine Cancer, Patient Advocacy, Survivorship, Treatment

Hi NETworkers! Welcome to my fourth 'community' newsletter, the monthly summary of NET news, views and ICYMI (in case you missed it!). February was a slower month in blogging terms due to a major increase in contact from people privately asking for advice and others asking me to support external projects. I don't have an issue with private contact but please note my disclaimer. I also had a winter cold for a few days, so I relaxed a bit. Only a short month but I managed to accumulate the second biggest monthly blog views ever (January 2017 will be difficult to beat). Thank you all so much ♥ January's success also led to increased Facebook followers and I broke through the 4000 milestone with a plan to reach 5000 by the end of the year or before. If I grew at…

01Feb 2017 by Ronny Allan 6 Comments

NETwork with Ronny © – Newsletter January 2017

Awareness, Living with Neuroendocrine Cancer, Patient Advocacy, Survivorship, Treatment

Hi NETworkers! Welcome to my third 'community' newsletter, the monthly summary of NET news, views and ICYMI (in case you missed it!). January was a month for breaking records. I recorded the biggest ever amount of views in any one day, any one week and now any one month and it will probably be a long time before they're broken again! This was mainly due to the fantastic support you showed for one particular blog post The Anatomy Of Neuroendocrine Cancer. Thank you all so much ♥ January was also a month for making new friends after being invited to speak to an audience of 30 pharma managers at Ipsen's Germany HQ near Karlsruhe. I was made very welcome by the Ipsen staff and I think it's great they want to hear the…

01Jan 2017 by Ronny Allan 3 Comments

NETwork with Ronny © – Newsletter December 2016

Awareness, Living with Neuroendocrine Cancer, Patient Advocacy, Survivorship

Hi NETworkers! Welcome to my second 'community' newsletter, the monthly summary of NET news in Dec 2016, views and ICYMI (in case you missed it!). December was a particularly special month. For the previous 3 months, I had been busily working behind the scenes and on my various social media presences to put on a good show for the 2016 WEGO Health Activist Awards. This paid off and I won the Best in Show 'Community' category in addition to being shortlisted as one of 5 finalists in the blog category. The community award was special because it means we all won the award as a part of this 'Community'. I've picked up a whole new bunch of friends outside the NET world bringing much-needed exposure to NET Cancer. I had a quiet week resting before I…

02Dec 2016 by Ronny Allan 3 Comments

NETwork with Ronny © – Newsletter November 2016

Living with Neuroendocrine Cancer, Survivorship

[caption id="attachment_8478" align="aligncenter" width="600"] Please share me![/caption] Hi, welcome to my first newsletter, a pilot for a monthly summary of NET news, views and ICYMI (in case you missed it!). What a month November has been - we had NET Cancer Day build up and I've been working hard to put on a good show for the 2016 WEGO Health Activist Awards (results expected around 6/7 Dec) whilst at the same time maintain my other campaigning activity across a wide range of social media platforms. Due to increased activity, I recorded the second highest monthly viewing figures ever - over 13,000 hits on my blog site in one month (and even more on Facebook). Not bad for a little backstreet disease - but my intention is to take it to the high…

26Oct 2016 by Ronny Allan 7 Comments

Living with NETs – a patients included award winning site

Awareness, Living with Neuroendocrine Cancer, Patient Advocacy, Survivorship

It's no secret that I and other patients (see picture below) have been helping Ipsen Group and their website consultants (Kanga Health) with a new site designed to support and help all Neuroendocrine Tumour patients. It was subsequently launched on NET Cancer Day 2016 and is very aptly named 'Living with NETs'. Very pleased to see all this hard work recognised at the 2018 Eye for Pharma awards for the Most Valuable Patient Initiative. And, this is great awareness for Neuroendocrine Cancer at a major pharma event. I'm also delighted to be speaking alongside Ipsen as the EyeforPharma Patients Summit event in London on Oct 16th 2018. I'm quite excited about this new initiative from Ipsen Group (the manufacturers of Somatuline (Lanreotide)) and not only because I feature on the site…

12Sep 2016 by Ronny Allan 5 Comments

WEGO Health Patient Leader Ronny Allan – Living with Neuroendocrine Cancer

Awareness, Living with Neuroendocrine Cancer, Patient Advocacy, Survivorship

This is what taking part in the WEGO Awards means to me Background In 2016, I was nominated for 6 awards, got to the final for 2 (Blog and Community) and then won the Best in Show Community award. In 2017, I was nominated for 3 and got to the final in all 3 - unfortunately I did not win any of them due to fierce competition. Here we are in 2018 and I've been nominated for 5 awards and made to the final in the Blog category. This is not only another great opportunity for me as a blogger and health activist but also a further opportunity for Neuroendocrine Cancer awareness. The winners of the 2018 awards will be announced over the period 26-28 Sep 2018. Check out WEGO's…

08Jun 2016 by Ronny Allan 2 Comments

Make some noise for a silent cancer

Awareness, Inspiration, Living with Neuroendocrine Cancer, Patient Advocacy

One of the key aims of my blog is to create more awareness of Neuroendocrine Cancer (or NETs), its peculiarities, its effects, its ability to deceive, its ability to kill if left undetected and/or untreated; and its impact on Quality of Life (QoL). There are millions of people out there doing similar with thousands of other conditions. That means even to stand out a little, messages must be compelling, must attract attention; and must catch people's interest. In the last 36 months, I've generated a few 'different' awareness campaigns, some of which have been more successful than others and I learn from this. One of them is actually now the most tweeted post about NETs on twitter. Fortunately, I have had significant help from YOU because if you did not share my posts…

17Nov 2015 by Ronny Allan 3 Comments

Neuroendocrine Cancer Surgery – a patient experience (part 1)

Living with Neuroendocrine Cancer, Survivorship, Technical NETs, Treatment

[caption id="attachment_4373" align="aligncenter" width="678"] Chris and I with our friend and hero Mr Neil Pearce - my surgeon.[/caption] First Surgery - 8th - 26th November 2010 Memories of my 18 day stay in hospital from 8 - 26 Nov 2010, are not only reminding me of how important that particular treatment was to be, but also how surreal it felt at the time. Some of it is still a blur, particularly the early days where the morphine was in control. For many NET patients, surgery can be a mainstay treatment, even for those with metastatic disease. In fact, I now know from my own research that NETs is one of a small number of cancers for which surgical debulking can in many cases confer some survival advantage in a metastatic…

18Sep 2015 by Ronny Allan 32 Comments

Opinion: Neuroendocrine Cancer Awareness – let’s move into the 21st century

Awareness, Living with Neuroendocrine Cancer, Patient Advocacy

OPINION The build up to NET Cancer Day has begun and I can hear hoofbeats becoming louder every day. Is it a horse, is it a zebra etc etc. However, is this aged equine medical adage still applicable as an awareness tool for Neuroendocrine Cancer or should we be looking for something which is more impactful, up to date, more compelling, more likely be taken seriously and attract new audiences? For those unaware, the term 'Zebra' is a North American medical slang for arriving at an 'exotic' medical diagnosis when a more commonplace explanation is more likely. The original context of the term was to correctly indicate that the most obvious diagnosis of symptoms is normally correct - i.e. hoofbeats is almost always the sound of a horse. "When you hear hoofbeats,…

10Nov 2014 by Ronny Allan 2 Comments

Every Day is NET Cancer Day!

Awareness, Inspiration, Patient Advocacy, Survivorship

Opinion. In 2014, I experienced NET Cancer Day (10 Nov) on a major scale for the first time since its inception. Prior to that, it didn't really do that much for me. Spookily I even woke up on 10 Nov 2010 after major surgery. Read about this here - I even woke up on November 10th after major surgery. The build up to these events normally doesn't start in earnest until around 3 months prior to 10 Nov. On or around this day, people meet up, patient conferences and support meetings are held, thousands of tweets and Facebook posts are published, people make and eat cakes, and money is raised. I suspect awareness of NETs benefits but these things can quickly be forgotten outside the rather small world of NET Cancer patients, specialists,…