As you and I have both been bombarded with pink fabrics, billboards, store items, and apparel as far as the NFL, we both know that it is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. It’s a month that is either officially dedicated, or unofficially dedicated, (not quite sure here) to some particular cancer that women get in the breast, and that by buying said pink stuff or by being reminded of some cancer you’ll probably never get (or whatever, you might, but who cares?) you are being told by some charities and some other authorities that by just seeing or spreading pink in any way possible, you are making the world a better place.

At the inception of my adult life around 2003, all of this became the rage every October. I mostly ignored it. I did pick up a credit card that promised donations to Komen, without having any idea what Breast Cancer was. So what? Its a charity. They gave me a high limit. That was okay with me. And what was Breast Cancer anyway? I quietly put up with all of this crying about Breast Cancer crap, like everyone does, who is as unrelated to any “survivor” as I was. I even resented a little, as an artist, how they hijacked the color pink once a year. I didn’t really have any need for pink, so I mostly ignored this one too.

Despite all of my ignoring, I was becoming more aware of Breast Cancer, involuntarily, by all of this atmospheric baby-girl pink everywhere at all times. I was becoming more aware, that is, of something that is a Cancer of the Breast existed, and that more and more people felt that they should find a cure for it. It’s kind of like an election with no voting. For a momentary period of time, some part of the populous is consumed by some cause that will cure some problem and then it’s over when they say it’s going to be, beit Novemer 8th or October 31. Then everything goes back to normal. We get to wait another year to be bombarded with Pink once again.

The tiny place in my mind where my “Breast Cancer Awareness” existed was ripped open, stuffed full, surgically hinged, and locked shut again in a single day, and it didn’t have October’s help to ease the transition. It was January 10, within 2 weeks of the statistical Worst Day of the Year (actually I think I had my lymph node surgery on that day, maybe.) I had a mammogram, an ultrasound, or three, and a biopsy oh AND the medical student they allowed to take the second core missed the novocated area. (They are brilliant I tell you.) What had lead up to this was that I felt something like a pebble on my boob, right near the nipple that had disappeared into my breast for 8 months. It had been examined by an Ob-GYN, who did not find it. Nobody else who had seen it had any idea why it would be so stuck in there. Then I guess I touched a place near there where nobody else had yet, and to the phone I went. I walked out of the hospital that day with my head down, every radiology tech or doctor trailing me from their chairs with bewildered faces. Not only could I get Breast Cancer, I did have it, it is what this was, and I didn’t know anything more, like if I was dying or not.

Breast Cancer Awareness, in its floods of pink and whole month of marketing blitzes, is failing. It is failing every future person who will get Breast Cancer who doesn’t have any idea what it is, like me. It would be better renamed to something like “Breast Cancer Comfort” for what it does best, which is to remind and assure survivors, families, and loved ones that the world is watching and trying to do better. Breast Cancer Awareness does nothing to teach the uninvited world anything more about the disease.

Even when you do get some information, like “Look for a lump in your breast” or “ Do a self-check every month”, all I can say is at least it is something, but my Ob-GYN DID NOT FIND MY LUMP IN HIS OFFICE with all of his experience, performing said exam. I cannot stress that enough. He thought my breast looked weird but his exam turned up nothing. Half the time when you do find lumps they are cysts and other natural, harmless things. The dude later apologized through his “assistant”. In other news, I won’t be going to a golf-loving, young male Ob-GYN ever again.

Here are some points that I would like to make that I feel that Breast Cancer Awareness is sorely missing, from my own personal experience as a patient with the disease:

• Go outside, pick up a pebble. If you ever feel this (short of surface texture) under your skin anywhere, beit, breast, armpit, or any other body part, RUN to the nearest screening center.
• Men do get Breast Cancer, though these cases occur alongside genetic indicators.
• If you feel an abnormality in your breast that moves, is squishy, or hurts, it probably isn’t cancer. But get it checked out anyway.
• If anyone would have been exempt from a Breast Cancer threat by statistics: age, family history, or the like, it would have been me. NO woman is exempt from the threat. Feel your boobies.
• Roughly 70% of breast cancer is Ductal, the rest is Lobular. Ductal means it occurs in or near the milk ducts, which means it sits right no your nipple. If you notice anything weird going on with your nipple at all, even loss of sensation, get it checked out. Lump or no lump. I noticed loss of sensation when I was 21.
• Lobular carcinoma occurs in or near the milk glands themselves, so that can be harder to find or sense. If your breasts feel unevenly weighted or textured, get it checked out.
• Most tumors require surgery. If it’s Ductal, you will lose your affected nipples. Sorry. I know it sucks. If it’s Lobular, the balance of your breast will be affected. Looking like frankenstein under your shirt can put a real damper on dating, but most partners who don’t mind are actually worth your time. (hello silver lining!)
• Depending on the number of affected lymph nodes (hopefully none - you will lose at least 4 even if it’s determined to be none) - you will need surgeries to excise them, which while not being too dis-forming, can cause the lymph in your body to just sit and collect in these spaces where the lymph nodes used to be. This is called lymphedema.
• Chemo is scientifically-engineered poison. It comes in bags and in syringes. They will probably insert a port under your skin over the right side to access your Aorta instead of sticking your arm with this burning stuff, during some other surgery. You’ll feel like a robot, but in the end it saves your arm veins. They’ll also want to keep it in in case you need more chemo after your initial round of 8, 12, 16, or 20.
• Chemo treatments vary, but mine were done every 2 weeks a total of 8 times. The sensations also vary, but if you have ever been very hungover or recovering from the influence of a stronger chemical, this feels similar. Ongoing, inescapable, toxic pain. Best of all, you have to babysit yourself - if you get hungry or thirsty and ignore it, it could become a medical emergency.
• If you have not had all of your children yet, they will put you through medical menopause to give your reproductive system the best chance of survival. This is menopause induced by hormones by injection monthly. As if the chemo wasn't bad enough, you will no longer have estrogen and re-experience life as a 10 year old girl.
• If you have surgery to remove your tumor, ask about the margins. Do not accept anything other than 100% perfect, clean margins. If you don’t get clean margins, find another surgeon to clean up the mess the first one made.
• Radiation isn’t that bad, but it is daily.
• You may not survive.
• After all of this treatment, you will be bald, fat, out of shape, frankenstein, and expected by everyone to get your life back, because nobody likes to see you like this.
• Nothing will ever be difficult after this, ever again. Well maybe a few things, but the list diminishes significantly.
• --BUT--
• Every time you see a pink flag, you will be grateful for your life.

Personally, I wish that Breast Cancer Awareness take the next step of making the public truly aware in sharing facts and patient observations more fluidly, as well as placing the emphasis on funding. Funding the medical research necessary to develop less invasive, more effective treatments, or even a cure, will eventually solve the problem that is Breast Cancer: a deforming medical hell that is on the rise because of mostly unknown factors. All Cancer research funding is worthwhile, it took a 400 Level Biology of Cancer Class during the summer of my treatment to prove this to my ears - They can and do figure out ways that all cancers start, grow, and metastasize. This, however, takes a lot of time, effort, equipment, and trials. Without funding, no advances can be made. Eventually there will be a cure, even if this is determined to be “No air pollution shall exist,” they will discover it, and when they do, it will be because of Komen, and Dr. Susan Love, and all of the generous funding, charities, and hard working scientists who dedicate their days to mindfully breaking down the secrets of Breast Cancer.

And while I wish Pink taught us more about what the disease really is, I love seeing it and knowing that so much effort is behind destroying Breast Cancer.

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