Yes I’m a curmudgeon so, yes, I do tend to be a raw nerve, always ready to be annoyed.
My last post included the quote about “just because you’re offended doesn’t make you right”, and I’m finding that I need to take my own advice so late tonight.
Looking through the Tastefully Offensive blog, which I normally like (stupid pictures of dogs & cats!), I found Dina Goldstein’s “Happily Ever After?” series, featuring Disney princesses (Snow White, Cinderella, and all them) in various “real issues” (quote from the artist’s website). So we get Cinderella drinking heavily in a bar, Snowy with a bunch of kids and living in, uh, less than a castle, etc. And poor Rapunzel, sitting in a hospital, with her long hair sitting beside her, bald head shining, getting chemo. Yes, she has cancer, according to the artist’s explanation. (Now would be a good time to check it out, just Google her or the series name, I’m uncomfortable including a link).
I am basically fine with the work; I interpret it as a challenge to the Disney and the princess culture that seems to swallow young girls. My issue is with Tastefully Offensive, because they created a blog post featuring all the photos and titled it “Fallen Princesses”.
So my question is, how is getting cancer make one “fallen”? I suppose none of the princesses are really fallen anyway; this isn’t the 1950s where getting pregnant makes a woman fallen, and it is a woman’s right to drink up a storm in a bar. But the cancer one really bugs me, it insults me because it hints at that “blame the patient” thinking.
But the name of the blog does contain the word offensive. So I re-read the “outraged cancer patient/stop blaming the patient” comments I wrote at the bottom as I prepared to re-blog, and then I hit cancel.
I read with delight of Scorchy’s petition’s victory with Facebook, concerning the removal of the SCAR Project’s photos. But a note she put in her post caught my attention: “Facebook does not actively search for content to remove, but only reviews content after it has been reported.”
I removed my Facebook page over a year ago for non-cancer related personal reasons, so I know little of what they are up to these days other than this issue, and other breast cancer prejudice that I’ve mentioned in older posts. But the way I understand this is that some Facebook users were offended by the pictures of breast-less, scarred, (formerly) cancerous women, and then complained. I’m curious as to whether any of these people complain about the boobie-centric pictures in ads that accompany breast cancer events.
Cancer, surgery scars, and death are indeed offensive but they all happen regardless of our best efforts. Putting them out of the line of vision, ignoring them, will not make them go away. What will these complainers do if they get cancer, get surgery, get scars? Not look in the mirror? I suppose their answer to me would be—“no, but I wouldn’t put my pictures all over the internet.” Of course I disagree with that, see my Fables of the Reconstruction page.
And here is the best response to those who complain about mastectomy pictures on the internet I’ve found: “Just because you’re offended, doesn’t mean you’re right.” Ricky Gervais
This is what I get for posting pre-coffee. I got up, walked dogs and wrote a post in my head while doing that, typed and posted, THEN wandered over to the coffee maker, having forgotten to include a big point in that previous post.
The worst thing about the “Time” magazine post had to be the damn title: “More Breast-Feeding Could Save Billions and Prevent Thousands of Breast Cancer Cases”. Those last 6 words. I mentioned in the first of this unintentionally ongoing series of posts that I follow news and blogs to keep up with health and breast cancer issues. Putting words like “prevent” and “breast cancer” in a title will guarantee not only I, but many women will read an article. And the article is not even about breast cancer, really. The whole point is to get folks to see the importance of breast feeding. I mean, I could care less about breast feeding issues since I never wanted kids, and for years even I’ve received the message loud and clear: breast feeding is the best thing to do in the whole world. Think pink ribbon awareness is achieved, maybe even over saturated? So is this issue. When a childless curmudgeon such as myself gets it, much like the NFL draped in pink, it is a signal the target market has “got it”. My guess is that since the breast feeding community still puts the message out there so much is that certain demographics are not being reached. Just like with pink ribbon marketing—the white woman of a certain income level (former income level in my case) has the message, and repeating it over and over to that group does not translate into getting the message to the other demographics—so change the tactics, OK? No I don’t know how to do that, if I did, I’d be doing it.
Now, don’t comment to me about breast feeding and getting the message to whatever group is not yet doing it. That ain’t my ax to grind today, or any day, so telling me problems with breast feeding awareness will fall on deaf ears.
What is pissing me off is that once again, the media AND advocates for one issue are taking breast cancer fear and using it to further their own agenda. Want attention for your cause? Figure out a way to drag breast cancer in your sound bite. The words will get in the headline or title of the article, and certainly in the tags, and presto! Instant readership. And hell, you’ll even get someone like me, who does not give a damn about your issue, to write not one, not two, but three posts about your issue—yes I realize all my ranting is just feeding the mess. I’ve talked about this before in Does Breast Cancer Owe It to Other Cancers?, advocates for other health issues cleverly realize that Breast Cancer Pink is the Big Deal. Want attention? Just say any magic words that include “breast cancer”. “Heart disease kills more women than breast cancer.” “Breast feeding prevents breast cancer.” The result is immediate attention for your personal cause.
Those of us who criticize Komen and Big Pink for breast cancer fear mongering to sell unnecessary procedures and extra mammograms (hmph, mammograms, snort of derision), just look what Komen and Pink have launched. Now everyone is doing the fear mongering dance. Everyone screams “breast cancer” to get attention even when what they have to say has little to do with breast cancer, and the public will continue to tire of hearing about breast cancer. And the problems of breast cancer will continue to go overexposed and unsolved.
In the previous post I called upon those doctors, Dr. Kathleen Marinelli, MD and Dr. Melissa C. Bartick, quoted in the piece to come up with a way to expand this “prevention method” for women who do not want children. Perhaps that is unfair for me to ask that, since their fields of expertise are Perinatal Medicine & Neonatal Medicine and Research, respectively, and I see no mention of Oncology in relation to their names according to good ol’ Google. I lay the blame not only at the feet of “Time” magazine and all media, but also at the feet of health professionals who sensationalize their health issue by using breast cancer fear as a selling tool. Don’t talk about breast cancer unless you’re giving me something I, Jane Q. Breast Cancer Patient, can use. And no, breast feeding to prevent breast cancer is not useful.
I suppose normal people get mad about something, and then cool down about an issue as more time passes. Not so for the curmudgeon. I wrote the previous post in a fit of white hot anger. I went off. I blew a gasket. And a million other clichés anyone can think of. One would think that after 12 hours have passed, my hot head would’ve cooled down. Nope. If anything, my head is hotter.
I wrote from my narrow minded own point of view. That “Time” post contained some—for lack of a better word, triggers—for me. I get so tired every Mother’s Day, the women who’ve chosen to not have children write blog posts or news articles defending their decision. Well, I like reading these pieces, it makes me feel like less of a freak for my own stance. I just hate the way these things pop up every May in an almost defensive “I chose not to have children and that’s ok, I’m not just some sad, unfulfilled woman crying this whole day” way that irks me. I used to think not having kids was a normal, logical choice for myself. With each passing year, I feel more and more as if I’m viewed as some kind of radical, sticking my middle finger up at society by not procreating. Well, yeah, I often am sticking up my middle finger, but in lots of ways for lots of reasons, not child related!
The other trigger is the focus on estrogen positive cancers, ignoring HER2 positives. I actually understand that a bit; only 20% are HER2 positive, so naturally most conversations or information about breast cancer will be about the majority, as maybe it should be. Come to think of it, I marvel at the invention of Herceptin. I cannot believe Big Pharma went out to make a drug for such a small part of a lucrative market (gonna have to read up on the history of that drug). But hey, that drug is the third top seller of all cancer drugs (see here), so I guess I shouldn’t feel bad for the poor ol’ drug companies (YES, being VERY sarcastic). I imagine the sophisticated marketing plan discussion for the drug boiled down to “hey we are only going to be able to get a portion of these desperate women (read breast cancer patients), I know, let’s charge the shit out the women who want this drug!”
But this morning I put myself in the shoes of women who had kids and got hit by cancer…especially estrogen positive cancer. Or wanted kids, and have been denied the chance to have them because of cancer. Or are indeed estrogen positive and chose not to have kids. How do these women feel? If any of these women interpreted the “Time” post the way I did, (that having a baby and breastfeeding it for a year is a way to prevent breast cancer, and if you got breast cancer because you didn’t do this you deserve it, and you’ve put a burden on public health), what must these women feel? If you are such a woman, reading this, I welcome comments (to me, to others, have a conversation here if you want, let loose, I LOVE that). I hesitate to speak for any such woman. I’ve done so before (here), in putting myself in the shoes of those who get so-called unnecessary mastectomies, because I can understand it, although I got the “approved” lumpectomy instead. (Still cannot believe I did that, I fall into so many small percentages regarding cancer, I don’t think the “low probability of breast cancer returning in same or other breast” as doctors like to yammer on about can actually apply to me. I had less than half a percent of a chance of getting cancer before 40 and I did, so you over there with your low stats bullshit, bite me.)
So thoughts on this topic—let ‘em rip, because I want to know. And thanks Cancer In My Thirties, for making me view it another way!
In the meantime, my challenge to the two doctors (Dr. Kathleen Marinelli, MD and Dr. Melissa C. Bartick, MD) quoted in the “Time” post regarding how breast cancer can be prevented by breast feeding: Good job on finding a prevention that many of us are so desperate for. Now, figure out a way to take that knowledge and turn it into another preventative method. Not every woman is cut out to be a mother, and they should not feel like not fulfilling their biological imperative will kill them.
Yet another Time magazine blog post claiming that breast feeding could save thousands from breast cancer.
How? Explain it to me, because I am a science idiot so I don’t get it. To the best of my understanding, the production of milk for babies has something to do with estrogen, which has something to do with, or not, in estrogen receptive cancer. Am I totally misunderstanding this?
I see this claim about having kids/breast feeding and the correlation to breast cancer every few months. This one was especially annoying in that it contained this: “What’s important is that it tells us that the cost of not providing support to women to optimally breast-feed their babies is astronomical because of the known health benefits to women. This points out that breast-feeding is not a lifestyle choice; it’s a public health imperative.” (So says Dr. Kathleen Marinelli.)
So I am not doing my part for public health by choosing to ignore my biological imperative (I never wanted kids), and not breast feeding. So my cancer is my fault and I’ve placed undue burden on public health. Yes, I get that she was probably saying those words to make employers understand that leave time (or whatever) needs to be provided for nursing mothers. I have no objection to that. And I probably should not complain, I’m in the minority (again). I’m just so tired of seeing this kind of headline, with an article that contains NO explanation of how breast cancer is linked to breast feeding. (I had to resort to Google, keep reading.)
I was estrogen and progesterone negative, HER2 positive. How does that have to do with not breast feeding? When I Googled “how does breast feeding prevent breast cancer” the first (non-ad-related) article that comes up is Dr. Weil saying “breastfeeding does appear to protect against breast cancer, probably by affecting levels of estrogen in a woman’s body”. My cancer had nothing to do with estrogen. Hell, I’m still on birth control pills!
The paranoid side of me wants to see a conspiracy in this constant stream of encouragement to reproduce and do as nature intended (breed & breast feed). Not everyone wants kids. And it’s not like there is a shortage or something.
Does it bother no one that I would be the reincarnation of Joan Crawford? That I am the definition of an unfit mother? I made a rational, informed, modern choice to not have children, and it was the correct one. And breast cancer is NOT my punishment for this correct choice.
I know, I know. This article was not directed at me personally. But they seem to be so frequent, when I am least expecting them. It is not as if I am seeking them out. I follow/subscribe to blogs about health, and breast cancer specifically. I do this looking for any shred of hope of protecting myself from going through cancer again. And this is what I get for that.
This post is a bit of a goof, some will find it funny like I do, but I promise it is all true…for better or worse! This IS my life and how I live it.
In the summer of 1989, I had just graduated high school and was trying to enjoy some free time NOT learning anything before going to college. But when I saw “Indiana Jones and the Holy Grail” that summer, I inadvertently learned a lesson I did not know would help me later in life when I got cancer. There is a scene in which Indy asks his father about the clues the father collected all his life to identify the location of the Holy Grail. Indy is shocked that his father, the foremost Grail expert in the world, cannot remember any of the details written in this book of collected clues, which of course has fallen into enemy hands. The senior Dr. Jones says something like “that’s why I wrote it down in the book, so I wouldn’t have to remember!”
For the already scattered mind, chemo brain is a bitch. By nature, before cancer, I was always dealing with a short attention span (think that stupid t-shirt that says something like “I do not have ADD….oh look a bunny,” yeah, I’m actually like that). Things like having a crawl on the bottom of the screen telling one news story while a talking head yammers on about something else, or OMG, the interwebz and its constant distractions, just don’t help. I’m sure many people, who’ve never even had to deal with cancer, get overwhelmed or over-saturated at least, with too much information to clog up the mind, because we are just having so much useless crapola fired at us all the time.
Post chemo, it’s like my brain is a net with very large holes, and only the really big tuna stays in there. Even worse, I suspect it erased some items that were formerly ensconced in my brain, and had been for years. I recently had lunch with a friend, a good friend, I was her maid of honor in fact…and she began recounting a certain drama that unfolded during her wedding back in 2000. Once she began giving me the details, sentence by sentence, I started to remember the drama, I remember calming her down during it, but I could not provide any of the details of it myself while we had this conversation. With each new detail she revealed, I went “oh yeah, that did happen,” like a lunatic or someone who just agrees a lot.
So I’ve adopted the methods of the senior Dr. Jones, and I write new pieces (of important) information down. My only obstacle nowadays is, of course, where did I write it down? Computer? Phone? Sticky note stuck to who knows what? Well, practice makes perfect, and I am perfecting the art of herding all of my Things Not To Forget notes into corrals of like items, where I can find them again later. And I’m still learning to never fall for it when I say to myself, “oh I’ll remember that!” I cannot even guess how many times I thought “I need milk, I’m going to the store, and will get it then, I’ll remember, no need to put it on the list.” Only to get to the store, buy ONLY the items on my list, get back home, and rediscover I have no milk. Then I kick myself, remembering and realizing the exact moment I should’ve written it down. I confess, I still sometimes fall into the “oh I’ll remember something so important, no need to write it down” trap, and get a cruel reminder each time: no, I won’t.
But I think I also subconsciously developed a system of retaining, examining, and then deleting information. For example, I recently signed up for a few breast cancer studies via Dr. Susan Loves’ Army of Women. I went through steps, including answering a set of questions to make sure I matched the criteria some weeks ago, and yesterday went to get the blood drawn for the study. I was asked many questions by those at the facility about the test (mostly to make sure that neither I nor my insurance would be billed for the procedure). As I struggled to answer the questions, I realized I had mentally discarded the info having to do with how I qualified for the study. Once I qualified, I thought I no longer needed it, I did not allow it clutter up my brain. I did not say this to the person asking questions, but quietly congratulated myself for only allowing just the necessary items to be in my brain (the info I was being asked was not really that needed–they just needed to stick me with a needle and fill tubes with my blood for pete’s sake), so I can at least try to function without being overwhelmed each day.
Here’s the catch, and the story behind the title of this post: I seem only able to delete certain pieces of information. How do I know this? Because anytime I hear the opening bars to that slightly-different-from-the-superior-Queen/Bowie-song, out of my mouth flies these words:
All right stop, Collaborate and listen Ice is back with my brand new invention Something grabs a hold of me tightly Then I flow like a harpoon daily and nightly Will it ever stop? Yo — I don’t know
Now, if ever there was an example of retaining unnecessary information, this is it. I’d even go so far as to say that I wish I could delete all song lyrics just to make room for important things, especially health info, so I would not have to repeatedly look up, well, most everything. I’m a major music fan, so maybe deleting all song lyrics from my brain is drastic; but good grief, Vanilla Ice’s “Ice Ice Baby” is one I retain? Really?! My inner punk rock girl is embarrassed. But on the other hand, the good news is I still know all of “London Calling” by The Clash as well.
A few years ago, Vanilla Ice was on MTV or VH-1, and he symbolically smashed a copy of the video for “Ice Ice Baby” so it would never be shown again. He shouldn’t have wasted his energy. His legacy, in the form of this ridiculous song, lives on in my chemo addled brain. Cancer took so much from me, but this, THIS, I still have. What will happen if I am lucky enough to avoid more cancer? In another 40 years, will I be in a senior home, possibly with memory loss resulting from old age, maybe even dementia, singing this song? Will I maybe not really have dementia, but the nursing home staff will think I do, simply because I can recite those lyrics? Can’t say I’d blame them, if I went around saying “All right stop, Collaborate and listen,” I’d think me demented too.
BTW, I should now mention that the reason why this music snob-alterna-grunge-girl knows “Ice Ice Baby”. My friend, the one mentioned above whose wedding I’ve forgotten much of, is still a big fan and loved, Loved, LOVED that song. Sometimes you learn stuff you’d rather not!
So perhaps I should find peace with this stupidly selective memory of mine. So what if I cannot remember every day/time of my cancer appointments, I can look it up. I was advised at diagnosis to keep a binder of all my cancer-related info, and I did. Lists of family history, of all drugs, dates of treatment, it’s all in the in the binder. I don’t carry it everywhere with me (trying to NOT be a cancer patient, even when others expect me to be one). So what if I don’t always get it right at the grocery store, I can go back and get what I forgot. I know the words to hundreds (dare I say more) of songs and I can sing along, and for me that is the best way I know how to keep the horror of cancer at bay.
And I wonder When I sing along with you If everything could ever feel this real forever If anything could ever be this good again
“Everlong” by the Foo Fighters, lyrics by Dave Grohl, see more on him here
anotheronewiththecancer 