Pinktober - the start of Breast Cancer Awareness Month - and everyone and everything seems pink. Cancer is not pink nor pretty, yet pink ribbons, pink shirts, pink races abound. Pink. A color signifying feminity, yet men get breast cancer, too.
Here's a few facts to educate you through the month.
1.) You can get breast cancer young. Really young. Cancer doesn't discriminate. I've met 20 year olds, young nursing mom's, and 80 year olds. If you feel something, say something.
2.) You don't go into "remission" for breast cancer. Remission is a term reserved for leukemia. The solid tumor term is NED. No Evidence of Disease. 3.) Stage IV is called metastatic disease. The hope? That the cancer can be "contained" and kept from spreading.
4.) 10% of all breast cancer patients are diagnosed Stage IV de novo. That means at the start they have "mets". Right. 5.) Anything you put in your body changes the way it functions. Chemo drugs are nasty strong chemicals that kill all fast growing cells. All. Lose your hair, lose your eyelashes, split fingernails, develop mouth sores, go into early menopause, experience lack of estrogen issues (chemo brain anyone?), and have dry flaky skin.
6.) Adjuvant therapy drugs - are nasty. See #4. And yet women stay on them for 5 years, 7 years, 10 years...hoping, just hoping, the drug will stave off cancer. Bone density decrease, more memory issues, rapid "aging" due to a lack of estrogen. The list goes on.
7.) You are never "cured". Cancer, while it may not exist in a body, still exists in the psyche. We cannot get away from it.
8.) Mastectomy is not a way to get a boob job. Sorry. Women have informed me that their "new" breasts are "icy cold" and have no feeling. Looks aren't everything.
9.) A lumpectomy is a smaller sized mastectomy. A partial amputation. 10.) People - men and women - DIE from breast cancer. It is not an "easier" or "better" cancer to have than other cancers.
11.) Scars. There are always scars. Physical and mental. 12.) Yes, we are doing all we can to "fight" - but, guess what? to many, "fight" is not a good word to use, especially when someone " is losing the fight". It's not because they didn't try hard enough to win. Just like "journey" isn't a good word to me. A journey is a pleasant sojourn. Cancer is more like Mr. Toad's Wild Ride through hell.
Early detection certainly helps. Yet, some women have NEVER had a mammogram. Some women have no idea as to what their breast tissue type is. Hint: If it's dense, that means it would be really really difficult to see the cancer in your breast tissue, and you NEED to be aware of this! Some women believe that it cannot "happen to them", and IGNORE signs that something is "just not right". Some primary doctors don't know, either. Get a second opinion. Or a third. Be heard. Men generally don't even check their breasts - yet men do get breast cancer. Get your mammogram. "Oh, it's going to hurt!" Right, much less than a stubbed toe. Poor excuse. "I don't have time." Make it. This is your life.
Want to do something that may actually save a life? Donate to breast cancer research. Find a researcher whose work you believe in. Contact the research facility and ask that your funds go to that researcher's work.
Want to do something that may change a breast cancer patient's day? Connect with that someone you've been ignoring because you "don't know what to say" - and they've been diagnosed. Bring them a coffee. Take them to a movie. Let them talk if they want to. Just be there.
Pinktober.