Debating this stuff makes me queasy because we all know those in Carly’s position usually really don’t need the added scrutiny, but it just stinks of internalised ableism. Even then, I want to give her some room for some growth and reflection etc because she didn’t get here in a vacuum, we all know how and why we develop identities and politics that work against our best interests, but in order to do that we need to be able to call it as we see it.
I think that was it for me, in a post where she literally said it was for her MS, it stinks of minimising/gatekeeping to say “she shouldn’t say that, she’s cancer-baiting”.
Has she at other times? Possibly and that’s obviously wrong, but in the posts I’ve seen and on those I went back to the other thread for, she was very clear in each it was for her MS and I don’t think it should be her responsibility to spell it out in minute detail because someone reading might not realise chemotherapy is used for many things at various doses. In these posts she may well have been using it to deflect criticism but (presuming she’s actually having the treatment) she wasn’t cancer-baiting or misleading people. It also makes me uncomfortable tbh that people are like “well puking isn’t a side effect according to this website”… people are all affected differently by treatments and perhaps it does make Carly nauseous and it may well be something a specialist would warn her about. We don’t know. It would be a very, very rare treatment of any kind that doesn’t have nausea/vomiting somewhere on the long list of possible side effects even if it’s not in the common list.
And while in this case yeah, it’s aimed at a grifter, the “you shouldn’t say chemotherapy unless it’s cancer” and “if you have chemotherapy it’s always a high dose, always intravenously, you always lose your hair etc” attitudes are widespread and insisting on them is harmful to both people who get chemotherapy for other things and also for people who have chemotherapy for cancer that doesn’t result in the “typical” symptoms.
Regardless of the reason, she has demonstrated herself to be pathologically incapable of delivering what she promised, and there is at least £160,000 of donated money still unaccounted for.
I don't think she ever expected to raise that much or get that much publicity and was totally ill equipped to deal with it - practically, physically and psychologically.
As someone also living with MS, I feel very sorry for her from a health perspective - it's a rough disease to live with and this new treatment suggests it's not been well-controlled by her previous regimen.
That doesn't excuse the fact that this has gone on long enough and there are questions that need to be answered about where the money has gone and what she plans to do now.
If she just honestly said "I'm not up to doing this right now - the situation is X, the money is in a business bank account and the business is being administered by three cats in a trenchcoat Whiskers until X date" that would be understandable, and I think she'd get a lot more sympathy than the current obfuscation and evasion.
I agree completely with all of this, much more eloquent than me!
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