Blogging Pink for Breast Cancer Awareness

Today I’m mad.  I’m mad because someone I know and love and someone who has fought breast cancer twice already, just found out it’s back again. I want to throw a pot against the wall or scream until my lungs hurt. I want to shake my fist in the face of cancer and pound it until it turns black and blue.

But cancer won’t even give me a face to punch, so instead I punch the keys on the keyboard. And I’m punching them hard, so hard they turned pink.

I’ve been angry at cancer for most of my life, with good reason.

My cousin Martha has been one of my best friends since she was born. There is only 6 months difference in our ages. I still remember where I was when I learned she had breast cancer…the first time, the second time, and the third time.

“It’s not fair!” I said to my husband. “She’s fought this monster twice! Isn’t that enough? Isn’t that more than should be required of anyone?”

His answer, “Cancer doesn’t play fair. You know that.”

And I do. My mother was only 50 when she was diagnosed with advanced colon cancer. Most doctor’s don’t even recommend a colonoscopy until age 50. For her it was too late. By July of the next year she was gone.

If cancer was fair it wouldn’t attack children like the 8 year old boy in our community who has battled his way back from childhood cancer.

It wouldn’t have taken the life of 13 year old Lane Goodwin, a sweet young man whose parents mourn him so deeply that my heart aches for them every I read one of her posts on facebook. You may remember Lane from his “Thumbs up for Lane” campaign. Celebrities and thousands of others encouraged him online with a thumbs up. His parents now operate a foundation in his memory.

Now, another friend has to fight cancer for the 3rd time and again I’m reminded that there is no rhyme or reason, it just happens.

Why We Can’t Give Up

It is estimated that among U.S. women there will be 40,000 breast cancer deaths? As far as I’m concerned that’s 40,000 too many.

1 in 8 U.S. women (about 12%) will develop invasive breast cancer over the course of her lifetime. So imagine you are in a room with 7 of your closest friends. Which one of the 8 of you will it be?

SU2C

I’m a firm believer that it doesn’t have to keep happening. I know there are people like me who are fed up, mad, sad, wounded and hurting! We have to take those emotions and put them into action. We have to Stand Up to Cancer. 

SU2C mission statement reads in part:

Stand Up To Cancer’s (SU2C) mission is to raise funds to accelerate the pace of groundbreaking translational research that can get new therapies to patients quickly and save lives now.

SU2C brings together the best and the brightest researchers and mandates collaboration among the cancer community. By galvanizing the entertainment industry, SU2C has set out to generate awareness, educate the public on cancer prevention and help more people diagnosed with cancer become long-term survivors.

GET MAD ENOUGH TO DO SOMETHING!

At the top of  SU2C page is a button that says, Get Involved. Click it and do something. GET MAD! Be a force. Help make a change. Stand up for someone you love. You can make a difference and together we can put an end to cancer.

Do it for Martha. Do it for my mother. Do it for my friend. Do it for your friends. Do it for Lane. Do it for your children and grandchildren. Do it for everyone and anyone who ever fought this battle, win or lose.

Please, I’m begging you. Help bring an end to this pain and suffering so that people like Martha and my friend don’t have to worry about this monster coming back.

 

Today is Blog Pink Day and here are some other blogger friends who are just as mad as I am and who want to do something about it.