A survivor's meditation on pink

It’s well into October and I’ve taken a couple of weeks to put my thoughts together on Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Each October I do this. It’s unavoidable. Everywhere I go I see pink. Even the endless NFL games my Dear Partner J watches flash pink all over. I go to the store to pick up groceries and there are displays advertising buy this pink item and support breast cancer or buy that pink item and support breast cancer.
For a long time I stood in the camp that the more we hear about it the better, but I’ve realized there is a tipping point and that some of the marketing is at odds with what it is trying to promote. For instance, I see pink candy for breast cancer awareness, which makes me think “Well, that’s nice and all, but sugar is no cancer survivor’s friend.” Then I see pink pizza boxes or, better yet, pink buckets of fried chicken and I think, “Well, that’s nice but didn’t my oncologist say that eating right, which doesn’t include eating lots of saturated fats and starches, and exercising will go a long way in helping me ward off a second bout of breast cancer?”
I suppose it really is a small price to pay for the abundance of awareness. In fact, I can think of no other disease that gets so much play. Just recently, I spent a morning with Amanda Pardee and Kari Mattson, who lost their father to Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), better known as Lou Gerhig’s Disease. They are working hard to get the word out about that devastating disease in hopes of finding at least a treatment, if not a cure. All the breast cancer hoopla has surely worked in my favor. I’m one of the lucky 25 to 30 percent of breast cancer survivors to be HER2+. Back before 2001, when a wonderful drug called Herceptin came onto the market, HER2+ meant for a poor prognosis. Now, a few extra days in the chemo spa means I have a fighting chance of never hearing the words “You have cancer” again.
I do, however, believe, as a cancer survivor, that more focus and research could go into nutrition, not simply coming up with what causes cancer, but really educating consumers on how to eat to create balance in the body. No one in my “Cancer World” helped me map out what I should be eating to make me feel better. I’ve had to map it out with friends who know a bit about the holistic approach to eating and know that all the processed stuff I was putting in my body was no good for it. I guess that’s why I cringe a bit when I see fast food places marketing their product in pink. It will soon pass and fall will get back to just being fall until winter hits. I guess at the core, October just reminds me that another year has rolled around and I’m still cancer free.

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