Walk, Run, Eat, Drink, Shop, Clean For a Cure..... Okay, okay, WE'RE AWARE!

Guest Column by Meredith Weaver

Fall…….ahhhh…..crisp mornings, warm afternoons, leaves crunching underfoot and the glow of yellows, reds and oranges. October, the “high month” of Fall. Halloween, October’s holiday, and its colors of black and orange were always those I associated with this, my birthday month.

Black cat construction paper cut-outs and orange pumpkins carved on the dining room table were just some of the examples I remember from my childhood, but the question I find myself asking more and more the last few years is “Why do I no longer associate black and orange with October?” 

Well, it’s really quite simple. The new color of October has clearly and effectively eclipsed black and orange. And that color is … need I even ask? PINK!!!!  Pink?  What?  Really? When did this happen? How did this happen? 

This transformation began gradually, but by now every single person reading this most certainly knows that I am referring to October as Breast Cancer Awareness month. And whether or not you are on board with “the cause”, you are lambasted with pink at every turn.

Pink permeates October’s landscape now in much the same way black and orange did when I was a child. As I walk through the mall, I am confronted with pink in every direction and every store!  

Pink ribbons handed out at the cosmetic counter.  Employees, as well as customers, don the pink fabric pin. And, if that’s not enough, for a couple of bucks I can upgrade to a permanent jewelry style pink ribbon.

Then there are the goods. Nearly every product on the market, it seems, showcases a pink ribbon somewhere on its packaging, letting consumers know that an amount of sales proceeds will go to support breast cancer research and prevention. The pink ribbons dotting everything from cereals and chips to laundry detergent, toilet paper and, yes, even wine, get me thinking there may not be any other specific health concern that has garnered so much attention and marketing, so to speak, as Breast Cancer.

There are walks and runs and golf outings to benefit breast cancer research, awareness, prevention and treatment. The NFL, MLB, PGA and other sports leagues have brought attention to “the cause” by wearing pink gloves or using pink bats.

Singers and songwriters have written songs detailing their own battles with the disease and yet, what has all of this attention done? Well, I know that much money has been raised to promote breast cancer awareness, and to encourage women to be proactive by doing self-exams and getting mammograms, and I know that many dollars have been given to researchers all over the world who are seeking a cure for this terrible disease which statistics tell us will still strike one in seven American women.

But, have we made the cause too commonplace? Is the pink so much a part of our worlds now that it has taken on a life of it’s own by way of sayings and slogans that have actually served to water down the real impact this disease has on those who are facing it (or have faced it previously)? I think so. 

While a pink bracelet with the slogan “I love boobies” may bring in a quarter or two to add to the pot of money being raised in this fight, is this the message that a woman who has had to undergo a mastectomy wants to see?

While “save the tatas” seems like a fun and innocent slogan to a group of women walking together for the cause, does the woman next to them, whose hair is just coming in from having undergone chemo and whose chest will never look the same because of the surgery which either removed her “tatas” or disfigured them due to removal of a lump, find that cute and encouraging? I believe the answer is, "No".  

Are we not involved in all of this fundraising because we love women and not just boobies?  Are we not trying to save lives and not just tatas? As a six-and-a-half year breast cancer survivor who underwent a bi-lateral mastectomy, chemo and radiation, I can tell you that while the slogans may sound cute to you, they do not, to us.

I am very grateful for having always been somewhat small-chested and therefore, never really finding my “identity” in my breasts.  Nonetheless, having them taken from me due to this disease was--and still is--quite a difficult thing.I am grateful for a committed and loving husband who continues to see me as beautiful despite my body being altered as a result of breast cancer.And to that end, I must inform those who do not realize this, that even with reconstructive surgery our breasts do not look like they used to.  

And this is not something that we approach as “well, at least I get a boob job out of all this.” I am also most grateful that while my breasts were NOT “saved”, my life has, at the very least, been extended thanks to the surgery and other treatments I have undergone.

If I had simply been concerned about saving my “tatas” it is very possible that I would not be here today. Incidentally, in an attempt to educate women I will say this -- I did not get breast cancer because I sat with my head in the sand and pretended it couldn’t happen to me.

Instead, because I was adopted and did not know my family medical history, I had my first baseline mammogram in my twenties. I continued with mammograms every five years and even had one just a few months before noticing the lumps that were eventually determined to be breast cancer.

Even more shocking, the last mammogram I had, which, by the way, was negative, was done just two weeks before a biopsy showed that I did have cancer. I say this because, like many diseases and other things that strike us in life, breast cancer is not a simple disease.  

There are many different types of breast cancer and many different ways to detect it. What your friend’s friend had is probably not what your neighbor has and just because your mom knows someone who had breast cancer 30 years ago and is still doing great, this may not be the same situation your friend is in as she faces the potential of losing not only her hair, during chemo, but her breasts through surgery.

And, while mastectomy surgery is a great option for some women facing later stage cancers, it is not a guarantee that same woman will never again be faced with breast cancer. I witnessed this two years ago as a friend, who was diagnosed with a very early-stage cancer more than a decade ago and who opted to have a prophylactic bi-lateral mastectomy because her older sister had died at the age of 27 from breast cancer, was told once again that she had breast cancer. 

That friend underwent both chemo and radiation and is doing well, but she serves as an example to others that this is a complex and complicated disease and there is no “pat” answer that fits every woman (or man) or every breast cancer diagnosis. 

So, let’s buy the yogurt with the pink ribbon on the container and dry our hands with the pink-ribboned paper towels and bid on the pink bat that Curtis Granderson used to hit a home run, and let’s walk, run and give to the cause, but let’s NOT forget, in the midst of it, those whose lives have been forever impacted as a result of the disease the ribbon represents.

Oh, and on another note, it has come to my attention that there are now wristbands being sold to support prostate cancer research. They sport the slogan “feel my balls" … I’ll let someone else jump on their soapbox for that one!