Excuse the pun. OK, forget the pun. Let's move on to the real purpose of this post which is Breast Cancer Awareness month that is literally peeking at us from around the corner.
With each year as Pinktober comes and goes, I find myself full of assorted sentiment about the month that continues to show up with more shades and hues of pink than I ever knew existed. Then the gamut of my emotions start to erupt and range from irritation surrounding the pink culture, guilt for the other cancers and diseases out there that need equal attention, gratitude that it's on the forefront of so many minds yet anger towards the lack of funding to find a cure for this disease and especially Stage 4/Metastatic BC that continues to steal lives from us on a regular basis.
So, with this entire spectrum of emotion surrounding Pinktober, I have been in serious contemplation about what I can do. One person, one blog, one survivor and one warrior who has made it through 3 rounds of this disease in the past 20 years. It must mean something right? What I need to do with all of this is the question that continues to occupy space in my brain and heart.
With nowhere to turn, I did what any survivor in my world could do, I reached out to one of my feisty breasties, Stupid Dumb Breast Cancer's Ann Marie Otis and proposed a plan, outlined it, and came up with a full month's Pinktober agenda. And by agenda, I mean a serious yet simple strategy to move closer to a cure. And of course she said a thunderous YES! In fact, her first line to me was "I think I love you!" Well, ditto to her and the blueprint we came up with for Pinktober 2014.
But just to bring more light to the overall picture here, we breasties and families out here are well 'aware' of breast cancer so may we please move on? Let's move past the pink purchases and take it to the next level shall we?
And by the way, not a day goes by where we are not reminded by this disease. You may see that we are out of treatment or have our hair back, but the scars are still there: some on the surface and some you simply can't see, they run too deep. We are often going back in for redos on our reconstruction, we continue to contend with daily fatigue, joint pain, the one nipple look, half a nipple, no nipples, tattood nipples (yes, I am saying the word nipples repeatedly and for a reason!) and weight gain due to meds. So please be self-assured that 'awareness' is ALWAYS on the forefront of our minds.
So, this is why we're done with the whole awareness gig and are ready to bump it up a notch - finding a damn cure. So, put your efforts and money where it matters most my friends - into research and support. We've lost too many beautiful souls to this disease and several over the past few weeks and I for one, am starting to get get pretty exasperated over this fact. Don't get me wrong, I am VERY grateful to have kicked breast cancer to the curb 3 times in 20 years BUT, we need to move past not wearing our bras for a month to increase awareness but focusing our efforts on funding quality research and organizations out there who are working with limited bankroll in order to find us a cure. Done. End of lecture.
Oh, one more thing, please stay tuned and hang tight until October 1st. We'll tell what to do, how to do it and where to donate your hard earned cash. It'll be that easy.
In the meantime, I leave you with this funny yet real quote that continues to be my most popular blog post to date - "Yes, their fake, the real ones tried to kill me!"
Enough said. Here we go.
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