It is the season of pink. While you pull out your pumpkin latte and “It’s Fall Ya’ll” hoodies, a silent battle rumbles in the breast cancer world.
Just as our journeys are very unique, so are the opinions of all things pink. Many feel that the pink ribbon is commercialized and wish that the money made off everything the ribbon gets slapped on would go to research or other useful funds. Some think that organizations dedicated to breast cancer don’t spend the money that is donated in the appropriate way. Some wonder why arguably the most prominent ribbon has not already had more advancement when so much money is thrown at it. Other color ribbons rightfully so ask why can’t they have as much attention.
Another camp of survivors get very angry about the pink ribbon and all it’s catchy slogans. Often a source of irritation is “Save the Boobies”. I see arguments that say “It’s not about the boobs, it’s about the women attached to the boobs”. From that statement comes in the very valid argument “But breast cancer happens to men too.” Some are irritated because all things pink glamorizes or pretties up breast cancer. Many look down and don’t feel that breast cancer is pretty.
I see validity in all of these feelings. However for me, I embraced the season of all things pink. It was during the season that I had the random thought, one day this will apply to me. It was during the season that I was just getting started with my own treatment plan. It was during this season that I came forward to all of you and began to share my journey. I hope I have shown that breast cancer is not a pretty sparkly pink bedazzled t-shirt but at least for me it also was not always a ratty torn up faded t-shirt either.
I am passionate about all of you doing your self-check and scheduling your mammogram. I wish preventing breast cancer was as simple as that but it’s not prevention it’s detection. Catching it earlier is literally the difference between really invasive surgeries and maybe keeping a nipple. Catching it earlier is the difference between chemo/radiation and no chemo or radiation. Catching it earlier can be the difference in 99% survival rate 5 years out and pretty sizable decrease in that number the further out it spreads.
I’m already a part of that statistic and I fall in the middle of the numbers they throw out. I’m two years into being one that makes it long past 5 years. Maybe more of the money donated could go somewhere else and maybe breast cancer has become very commercialized. Yes, breast cancer happens to men and women. Yes breast cancer can leave some very ugly scars both inside and out. All this is true. But I will tolerate all of that and I will embrace the hell out of the pink season if it means that by just one of my annoying post slathered in pink sparks one person to do a self-check or a mammogram. I will buy the damn t-shirt (or maybe sell it myself…) if it means that one person that did that mammogram hears stage 0 or 1 instead of stage 3 or 4. It’s not about me anymore. It’s about you. That’s where my passion is at now.
