Pink October – A survivor’s perspective

Beatrice, a breast cancer survivor from the Redtoenail blog had written a beautiful and eloquent post about Breast Cancer and I thought I should share it with all of you. So, with her permission, here it is

As a breast cancer survivor, sometimes I feel uncomfortable with the attention October gets, and sometimes I don’t. I think any cancer that deforms your body (removal of a breast or two) just naturally gets more attention. Our society puts alot of emphasis on women’s breasts, as a sexual thing, not necessarily as a life support system for an infant/baby. I think the removal of all your GYN parts (ovaries, uterus, etc), once again, deforms your body; not visible on the outside like the breasts, but you know all your women parts are gone; you know you are deformed on the inside.. So the combination of breast and ovarian cancer changes things like no other. It has the potential to strip you of all that “makes” you a woman. The very things that GIVE life and SUPPORT life. The breasts covering your HEART. The place where you HUG. Where you NUTURE a baby, where a young child clings to when needing COMFORT. And of couse what helps give a woman her CURVES. All gone. Maybe this is why breast cancer gets more attention than others. Loosing a kidney to cancer doesnt have anything to do with gender. Having colon cancer doesnt interfere with your mothering. Bone cancer wont make you more or less womanly. But there is something about knowing your breasts are gone, and all your GYN parts that should demand attention, and should be given a special month, and should have $ for research, and should have $ for support groups, and should have $ to help in any area needed. American Cancer Society has helped me with support and weekends, they do that for ALL cancers. Susan B. Komen raises money for research, and from what I read, it is working. Breast Cancer Network of Strength (Y-Me) supports women with their diagnosis and is a sisterhood. I have benefited from all of these, God bless all of them. I want the supportgroups/weekends to be there. I want the money to be raised. I am a third generation survivor on my fathers side and mothers side. I want this to end with my generation. I dont want this for my children or future grand-children. GO PINK! God bless all those who have run/walked/biked/swam/whatever for Breast and Ovarian Cancer-Research or Support.

 

October- don’t paint it so pink

I am sure everyone knows that October is Breast Cancer Awareness month. Coming from me,this might sound odd, but I have never supported buying pink. I have always felt that gifting a cancer survivor with a pink bracelet is just going to remind them of their hardships. Today’s article in Boston Globe, “sick of Pink” gives an insight into this.

Somer excerpts

When Kim Zielinski was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2007 at the age of 33, well-meaning friends inundated her with products bearing a little pink ribbon. Each product’s maker promised a cut of the sales price to a breast cancer charity, and these friends felt they were supporting the cause and, by association, Zielinski. A petite brunette who’s now 35, she was enormously grateful for the millions of dollars that these pink-ribbon products direct each year to charities that fund breast cancer research and education.

But it wasn’t long before she got a little sick of the pink. “I felt kind of hateful,” says the insurance company sales manager who lives in Charlestown. “I was like, ‘What makes you think I like pink now?’

“I think that the pink ribbon, as a symbol, tends to pretty up what is a pretty crappy disease. But a pink ribbon is easier to look at than the disease itself.”

Since she was diagnosed 2½ years ago, Anna Schleelein, a 26-year-old attorney in Newton, spends Octobers in a self-imposed pop-culture blackout. She tries to avoid TV, magazines, and, especially, shopping, to steer clear of all those pink-ribbon products. “October is just a reminder of my cancer,” Schleelein says. She is screened for recurrences with MRIs and mammograms every six months, and October is particularly difficult if she is awaiting the results of a test. “I want to buy my English muffins and not be reminded of it while I’m waiting for results to come in.”

The profit power of cause marketing is why, come October, everything turns pink. The pink ribbon’s use is unregulated, and it has no consistent meaning. Some companies simply attach a ribbon and say they’re “raising awareness.” Many pink-ribbon campaigns require the purchaser to register the sale online or through the mail.

Such misuse and hoop-jumping infuriates Jeanne Sather, a Seattle woman battling metastatic breast cancer and known throughout the cancer community for her fight against the pink ribbon and Breast Cancer Awareness Month. She will send a “Boycott October” button to anyone who asks.

As Jeanne Sather at Assertive Patient says in her blog about the usual statistics given about breast cancer as One in Eight ,

Well, the one in eight figure came from earlier stats from the National Cancer Institute that said if a woman lived to be in her 80s and didn’t die of something else first–say heart disease, stroke, or lung cancer–then she had a one in eight chance of developing breast cancer–NOT of dying of it.

Now, data from the NCI says that, if you are 25, your chances of developing breast cancer in your lifetime are one in 19,608.

If you are 35, your chances are one in 622.

If you are 45, one in 93.

And so on, until you reach the age of 85, when your chances of getting breast cancer are one in nine!

So, please just by Shopping , you are not curing the disease, you are just adding millions to the profit of all the companies trying to sell pink. And talking about survivors in blogs or talking about breast cancer awareness is not going to help either. It will be just that, some talk.

If you want to support a survivor or the cause, volunteer for helping cancer patients or donate the money directly to the Non-Profit Organization…Shopping Pink never saved anyone other than the companies selling them.