Not too long ago, someone posted about being sick and tired of October being dedicated to Breast Cancer Awareness because, "Let's face it, who isn't aware?" She thought we should be more "aware" of other causes.
I was like, really? "Awareness" is now a competitive sport?
Now, at the time, I was just wrapping up chemo and was due to start radiation.
And I felt like absolute shit.
Maybe you're sick of seeing pink in October (anyone who knows me, knows I am more an OD Green than pink girl, anyway) but saying that we should stop bringing this disease to the forefront because everyone's "aware" is ignorant: because not everyone is aware of how this disease affects women, their families, and their psyches.
Yes, we doll it up...we plaster pink all over it and put funny sayings like, "Save Second Base," or "Save a rack," on T-shirts, etc.
But there's another side to all this---a darker side. A deadly, disfiguring, body and mind altering side---and to have that side dismissed because someone is pinked out?
Makes me mad.
REALLY makes me mad.
Forget the green Hulk, people: you don't wanna see ME in all my pink freaken glory, MAD.
Because of breast cancer, I can never fully trust my body. Because of breast cancer, I have lived in some sort of pain or discomfort for one year. Because of breast cancer, my left arm must be babied and kept from sun burn and injury (injury includes hang nails---seriously---and again, if you know me, you KNOW this "babying" ain't gonna happen). Because of breast cancer, I can count on one hand how many nights of unbroken sleep I have had. Because of breast cancer, my body was poisoned and microwaved---and because of THAT, I may develop other cancers (Mind Fuck, anyone?) Because of breast cancer, my vision has changed. Because of breast cancer, my skin has changed and my stamina and muscle tone has changed and my....
And as a woman who had two lumpectomies, I cannot imagine what the mastectomy and mastectomy + recon girls deal with!
Get the picture?
I will NEVER be who I was before May 1st of 2013.
That woman is gone.
Imagine that. Imagine having all your assumptions about your future completely obliterated.
It's tough to imagine it when you're NOT living with cancer.
And let's explore what it does to families, shall we?
It's expensive.
What "fun" money we had, went to pay for my treatment. So, the treatment sucks AND you can't afford to have fun to offset the damn treatment. Then there's the husband and kids who wonder if you're gonna die. They don't say it, of course, but it's there. It's always there. And the mother who now wonders if her daughter will outlive her---something she always took for granted. And the brother who worries so much, he sat thru all my chemo treatments, trying to be upbeat while watching his sister be treated to a poison cocktail. And then there's my friends...the ones who visited and called and who were likely terrified thinking, "Is my friend gonna be ok?"
I could handle going thru this. Seriously. Going bald, feeling like shit, countless side effects: all manageable.
What was hard was watching my loved ones watch me go thru this.
Yeah...maybe the world is "aware." Most women get mammos and see their GYN for the once-a-year grope, but do they go beyond that? Guess what. Are you "aware" that mammos are the lowest diagnostic tool out there? That tomographic mammos and ultrasounds and MRI's are better tools to find cancers?
I had a clean mammo four months prior to finding my lump.
I rarely did self exams, because I thought the yearly mammo was my insurance.
I was "aware."
But awareness wasn't enough. I still got breast cancer.
And if you're female, there's a one in eight chance you will too.
