Yes, I know. October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Or as I like to call it: Pink Ribbons Out the Wazoo Month. As I've said before, in general, I don't have a problem with breast cancer awareness. I think it's a good thing. I have a problem with this huge celebration (or sale-a-bration) that it seems to have become. In the old days, you could send in pink yogurt lids and the company would donate 10 cents for each lid. Nowadays, every product made is available in pink, with or without the pink ribbon, and you are guilted into buying them. Many of these companies donate a pittance to the cause, and really, they could care less. All they care about is selling you products. And they've learned that this is a good way to do it.
My other peeve is the entire Awareness Month. Breast cancer does kill a lot of women and strikes a visceral cord with them, because it affects their breasts. But it's not the leading cause of death in women - that's heart disease. It's not even the leading cancer cause of death - that's lung cancer. And yes, maybe it's no longer the leading cause of cancer deaths BECAUSE of awareness. But I feel like it overshadows all the other cancers. How many women worry about getting breast cancer and get mammograms once they turn 40, but have to sneak out to their car and light up a cigarette? How many young girls start to smoke and get addicted, never thinking that one day it could kill them?
Carrying on with my peeve, Breast Cancer Awareness happens twice a year. I start seeing pink a few weeks before October, then there's the entire month of October. Then there's the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure around April. My local station starts advertising that 2 months in advance, because they have training sessions at the local track. So that's almost 5 months of Pink Ribbon Madness. Just as I get sick of seeing certain commercials on TV, I get sick of seeing Pink Ribbons everywhere.
Another cancer peeve I have issues with is the term "survivor." There's a good article about this on Slate. I'm not really sure what "survivor" means; apparently it has changed over the years. It used to mean having survived over 5 years in remission, I think. Call me crazy, but if the cancer is gone and never comes back, to me, that seems like any old bad disease. I think the true survivors are those who are still fighting it. And if calling yourself a survivor makes it easier for you to fight it off, then go for it. But as the article points out, calling yourself a survivor makes it seem like you did all the right things to survive. So anyone who dies, didn't do the right things. They didn't get the chemo, or the surgery, or a better doctor, or they just didn't fight hard enough. And that's just plain wrong. My grandmother fought cancer for years, until she finally lost that battle. But I declare her a survivor for lasting that long.
Don't think I'm trivializing cancer by calling it "any old bad disease." But if we're going to call people who survive cancer survivors, what about other diseases? Malaria is really bad, and it can recur once you've had it. So should those people be called survivors? It's pretty uncommon in America, but not in other parts of the world. What about people with recurring heart attacks, etc. Are they survivors? I know some people out there are going to say that I could never understand, because I haven't had cancer (and I pray I never do!). But I've seen two of my grandparents die of it. And I've volunteered at a hospice, where a lot of the deaths are from cancer. I don't trivialize anything that can cause that much damage. But I feel that Pink Ribbons are doing the job for me.
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