It’s not Pink, the singer, that stirs up ambivalent feelings in my soul, it’s the color pink linked to October’s Breast Cancer Awareness month. It’s all the pink stuff beyond the commemorative ribbons. It’s pink deodorant containers, buckets of chicken, yogurt lids, pens, bottles, garden tools, and such. I can’t even look at Pepto-Bismol bottles anymore.
Before sticks and stones are thrown my way, please hear me out. The end of next month marks the 7thyear from the last chemo session I had. That’s the date I considered myself cancer free.
There was an eighth session scheduled in mid-December for chemo but I was so friggin’ tired of being tired, having pain, throwing up, (fill in any adjective for miserable) that I skipped it. I wanted to make tamales with my family, as I had since I was a child, and I wanted to celebrate Christmas in my living room, not from my bed.
So I said “F-K It,” I’m not doing this anymore.
I still don’t know whether I based my decision on fatigue or it was a grasp at self-determination. Maybe it was both. Probably. I do remember feeling particularly powerless at that time. There are the ambivalent feelings of life and death, hair and no hair, sorrow and hope, regrets and plans, hell days and heaven days. Load these into a blender, push the button, and you might get a sense of how I felt.
gettyimages K.Tanier
Pinkproducts and words “Breast Cancer” remind me of this time in my life. This is where my ambivalence comes from; this is when I cringe.
I’m not ungrateful for my life, or breast cancer research, or awareness of breast cancer,
because I am and so are my three children, but it’s all that dang PINKeverywhere in October, when the autumn colors of golden, bronze, pumpkin, and burgundy naturally abounds.
PINK is in my supermarket, the drug store, magazines, T.V., clothing stores, pet stores, bakery, and on my toilet paper wrap. (Now wasn’t that bolded PINK just a little annoying?) That’s what I see in October, flutters of PINK everywhere. ANNOYING.
Breast cancer sucks. Marketing breast cancer double sucks.
My ambivalence also has to do with the fact that in my small world and community I keep encountering numerous cases of breast cancer in women ranging from 28 to 70 years of age. I’m sure you’ve heard of many people battling the disease within your circle of family/friends/acquaintances.
How can this be after years of research, millions of dollars, and awareness campaigns? Have we been operating on lies?
I am not saying that we should stop donating to campaigns of our choice (especially my favorite Dr. Susan Love’s research for the cause of breast cancer, thus the cure).
Au contraire. I’m still going to do my annual Relay for Life for the American Cancer Society. I’m still going to talk with women who are going through BC treatment- if they ask. I’m going to don my khaki hat with the pink ribbon (the one I wore for 6 months on my baldhead) and the black and pink one my sister traded for her own hat on a bus in London.
I will continue to advocate for people to be aware of how to minimize their risk to cancer and find affordable health care. I’m going to do those things and hope you show support by doing these things too.
I’m just one survivor/thriver trying to communicate my feelings. Maybe a day will come, soon I hope, when Pink no longer stirs up my stuff and becomes just another color, as the lyrics in this video so aptly describes.
I can hope.
UPDATE: Jennifer (down there in the comment section) referred me to a site where I met fella sisters who are sick of marketing the “Pink.” Check out Think Before You Pink. They bring up valid points:
As we head into November’s election, we urge everyone concerned about breast cancer to demand representatives from every state support the 2012 Breast Cancer Action Mandate for Government Action. We need to move beyond “awareness” and pink ribbons to demand candidates and elected officials take real action on breast cancer, by initiating and supporting independent research and strong regulation to turn the tide on this epidemic.
A phrase that has resonated with me for many years is the term “Strong Woman.” I first heard these words used to describe my mother when I was 10 years old “…she’s a strong woman.” I knew the person wasn’t talking about my barely five foot mother’s physical strength.
Another time I came across the term was when I worked on a new project for the California Department of Corrections. The objective was to develop a “treatment mall,” akin to the counseling areas in some newer mental health facilities: offenders from different living units meet in one area to attend counseling and living skills sessions in a cooperative, female responsive environment.
The task was to develop this treatment area without building anything new and using the existing prison facilities. The process is too long to describe here, but part of the planning involved selecting correctional staff and some female offenders to develop objectives.
One of the best parts of this project was the naming of our treatment mall. We invited all of the young women to participate by giving the building a name and a motto. Prizes were photographs and pizza. This may not sound like a lot, but in a prison, pizza and pictures are gold. (I won’t mention the illegal stuff that’s also gold).
After much fanfare and anonymous ballots, we had a winner. The name of the building: The Sunshine Mall.
Its motto: Strong Women Grow Here
This blew my staff and me away. I think it resonated so deeply because we felt they understood what real rehabilitation was supposed to be about. It meant some correctional counselors and team got it right with these particular women and that these women were listening.
Since that time, I’ve carried this motto and it’s concept with me. It finds it way into my fiction writing and I seek out books where characters are ‘strong women.’ It’s also made me think about what makes a strong woman.
A strong woman demonstrates several qualities. I could enumerate them but I also want to show examples of contemporary women who exemplify these traits. On the top of my list is:
Grace:The exercise of love, kindness, mercy, favor; disposition to benefit or serve another; favor bestowed or privilege conferred.
“Good Morning America” anchor Robin Roberts broke some bad news to viewers on Monday, announcing she has been diagnosed with MDS or myelodsyplastic syndrome, a blood and bone marrow disorder.
In 2007, Roberts revealed she had breast cancer and underwent a successful surgery to treat it. Though she has been in remission since then, she revealed her new diagnosis is linked to her earlier health battle.
“When I faced breast cancer, your prayers and good wishes sustained me, gave me such hope and played a major role in my recovery,” she wrote. “In facing this new challenge, I ask humbly for more of your prayers…My doctors tell me I’m going to beat this — and I know it’s true,” she wrote in an open letter posted online after she announced her diagnosis on the show.
Here is grace in action:
Grace is not only possessing poise, it’s also an attitude of thankfulness and dignity. Everything, from Robin Roberts voice, body language, and words exude grace. Amid this health challenge she says she is blessed. Her sister is a perfect match for her bone marrow transplant. Roberts demonstrates her grace by telling her viewers that she is:
“… focusing on the fight not the fright.”
“I’m like everyone who faces some life alternating situations, whether it’s your health, finances, or whatnot.It’s getting off the mat and fighting…”
“…This too shall pass…”
I’ll be continuing this “Strong Women,” topic for the next month and I’d love to know what qualities you believe describe a strong woman.
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