I'm very happy that today is the last day of October. If one more sales clerk asks me to donate a dollar to breast cancer research, I'm going to scream. A lot of the salespeople phrase the question as :Would you like to donate a dollar to breast cancer?" As in the perpetuation of...seriously?? Haven't I donated enough? You got my boobs, cancer and now you have the nerve to ask for a dollar. I really am disgusted by all the companies who spend millions of dollars on pink ribbons and packaging and marketing campaigns. Because what really is the goal here? To donate to cancer research or to get more people to buy your stupid product by exploiting what is actually a very physically and emotionally debilitating disease for 1 out of 8 women in their lifetimes. Why don't those companies just write a big fat check to the charitable organization instead of and in the amount they pay for marketing and advertising and packaging? Send money straight to the companies without taking a portion, kinda like Ellen Degeneres does when raising money on her show? Seriously, the celebrity dunk tank is one of the few campaigns to raise money that I endorse.
Anyway, Are all of you really certain where those dollars are going or exactly what types of research these companies are supporting? We all know that no amount of money will ever erase cancer of any kind. I agree that there is still so much we don't know and research can help to provide better treatment options and hopefully less deaths over the years, but the commercial that states donating can insure that someday no one will have to suffer from this horrible disease is a load of crap. I mean, do you really think those of us that have been through this need a breast cancer awareness month. For many of us, every month is breast cancer awareness month, every month, every day, all year long. We really just need to look in the mirror to be painfully aware.--in fact, we spend much of our time trying to forget and put behind us the impact this shitty disease has made on our lives. That's why I'm in therapy now---to try to become LESS AWARE of all that has transpired in the last year.
And all this talk of being a survivor, a soldier, a warrior in pink. GAG!!!!!!!!!!! I don't ever want to be labeled as any of these. Survivor implies you had a brush with death and narrowly escaped. I never really felt like I was at Death's door....maybe like I got a card in the mail from Death saying Thinking of You...not a great moment either, but better than Death arriving at my door. And just because I've survived this round of cancer doesn't mean I've escaped forever...it is an all too staggering awareness that cancer of some sort may not be through with me yet. I take a little pill called Tamoxifen every day that keeps me aware of that. So I say no to survivor. It also trivializes a group of people that deserve far more exposure than we "survivors" and those are the victims. By only attaching the word survivor to all these pink rosy campaigns, the truth of what breast cancer really is is lost. Not everyone survives. Thousands of women die each year.
On to soldier and warrior. these are just insults to the many men and women who actually are soldiers. Do we forget there have been and are people that actually are in the midst of warzones and battlefields? Getting through cancer is certainly a battle but mostly fought by the doctors, surgeons,therapists and pharmaceuticals that assisted me in becoming cancer free at this moment. Make no mistake that I did not come out on the other side strictly from my own will to survive. I had a bit of help. So I have made the choice to not call myself any of these things. And part of that is because I do not want any part of me to be defined by cancer. I do not want cancer to put a label on me. As much as the media tries to.
With that said, take a hike, October. Please take your time in coming back around.
