If you ask the retired man I live with how I am, he’s likely to answer, “Mean as a snake.” And you, most likely, will laugh, thinking he’s just being cute. But he tells the truth, at least a partial truth.
I have a wicked streak in my personality that not everyone gets to see or hear. Sometimes it comes out as sarcastic comments under my breath during a meeting or workshop. Sometimes it’s a look exchanged with a friend who knows which person gets under my skin anytime she or he speaks. Sometimes I just sigh. I sigh a lot in October.
A week or so ago, my WHOLE daily newspaper was pink. Even the comics and the horoscopes. I sighed, several times.
A few days later, I walked through the den while the retired man I live with was watching a pro football game. Pink tights and pink Nike cleats with tight white football pants is not a good look for a beefy offensive lineman. Or anyone else, probably. I sighed.
My mother-in-law died of breast cancer, as did 2 of her sisters. My sister-in-law lives with that genetic legacy. So do my 2 daughters. One of their friends had a preventative double mastectomy in her 30’s because of her family history. I have friends who are breast cancer survivors.
I’m jealous of the Pink for Breast Cancer marketing juggernaut. Who turned my newspaper pink? And who talked football players into wearing hot pink tights?
Most families have faced some kind of cancer.
My brother had melanoma twice and died of metastatic cancer of unknown origin. He had it everywhere and chose not to have treatment and go ahead and die swiftly a year ago.
My mother had throat cancer. After radiation that killed her salivary glands, she ended up with no ability to taste food and lost all her teeth.
I am a cancer survivor. I know what that means and how it feels. Nine years ago I was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma. Surgery removed one malignant lymph node and another disappeared (??). My cancer has been in remission since. I try to forget that it could come back.
My newspaper printed an article recently by Pat Trotta, a local breast cancer survivor. Here is an excerpt:
Recovery [after her mastectomy on October 1, 2012] was swift and painless, with my biggest problem being cabin fever. As soon as my surgeon gave me the OK to get out of the house, I just put the bulb of my drain tube in the pocket of my jeans and did what most women would do: I went shopping. I was thrilled at the prospect of a little retail therapy so I could quit thinking about the darn cancer.
My first stop was my favorite home improvement store, where the first thing I saw was a display of Pink Ribbon door knobs. My second stop was my favorite office supply store, where I was bowled over by a huge display that ranged from “Pink Ribbon Uni-Ball Gel Pens” to a pink-handled No. 8 scissors that claimed to “raise awareness about breast cancer.”
I was shopping to forget my breast cancer, but instead there were reminders everywhere I looked. I felt like I was in a frantic recurring nightmare, running from store to store, with more pink items ready to attack me behind the door of every retail establishment.
I had to get away from all this pink! I decided to watch a football game, surely a no-pink haven. Wrong! I thought I was having hallucinations when I saw NFL cheerleaders with pink pom-poms and football players with pink cleats. Apparently it has become politically incorrect to ignore pink in October. Employers are forcing their employees to wear pink shirts for a month.
This has gone too far…
I did some research and found that there are 48 colors and color combinations of “awareness ribbons” representing 221 types of cancer. So what about the other 220 diseases? What do their ribbons look like?
My solution is to start referring to October as “Cancer Awareness Month” and include all types of cancers. I actually feel selfish that all the focus and attention is on my type of cancer.
As retailers consider Pinktober for next year, my wish is that these displays would include products in all colors, reflecting all types of cancer.
One of my daughters started making tie-dye shirts last week. I’m going to ask her to make all of us October shirts using these cancer awareness colors (the ones that have affected our family): Pink (breast), Dark blue (colon), White (lung), Lime (lymphoma), Black (melanoma), Burgundy (head/neck), and Plum (for caregivers).
What colors will you use?
Amma Ponders 
loud cheers, Robin! i SO get what you’re saying here.
i, too, have too.many.friends who’ve had or been directly affected by breast cancer. so the pink ribbons are dear to me.
that said, i have such holy memories of rolling my sister away from her chemo for bone and lung cancer in October 2011. she would often comment that she felt ‘less than’ as she was surrounded in pink – a color she hated. Mari didn’t have a mean bone in her body. she just felt discounted every time she went for her chemo in October, because she felt like all that pink meant the cancers in her body weren’t as important to fight.
her reaction might seem silly, but that doesn’t make her feelings any less real.
since autism already has the ‘multicolored’ awareness ribbon,here’s what i’m going to do. next time i see an awarenss ribbon, i’m going to pretend that water has a special power that will help me stop and bear witness to and for anyone who’s fighting anything. i’ll take a sip, stop and toast Mari and then drain the whole glass.
yup, we’re all broken AND (thankfully) In This Together.
Mari’s reaction wasn’t silly at all! I’m trying to picture my brother had he lived long enough to be at the cancer center in October. That makes me laugh and be sad all at once. Want a tie-dye shirt if Kristin makes them?
I am just amazed at how symbolic we humans are, that the wearing of a color can represent solidarity around beating an illness. My singing partner and I recently sang for a breast cancer gathering and I did see that the shared color represented a shared hardship. I just hope that the wearing of pink somehow aides fundraising that leads to a cure.
oh my, so do I or what’s the point? I do wonder where the money for a pink pen ends up.