The Glass Character: pink for breast cancer

Showing posts with label pink for breast cancer. Show all posts

Sunday, October 23, 2011

My gift of. . . ?

On our way out of the supermarket today, we saw a solid wall of pink pledges: forms proclaiming the inevitable breast cancer donations wangled by hook, crook or guilt from shoppers already spending far too much for their groceries.

I squinted at them a little and said, "Hey Bill."

"What."

"What do you see if you. . . you know. . ."

"Oh, yeah. I see."

I did manipulate the second one just a little, but it surprised me how easy it was to go from one word. . . to the other.

Friday, October 21, 2011

When your toenails match your flip-flops

It's not every day that a woman's toenails match her flip-flops.

Yesterday I wrote about a bizarre dream I had about ovarian cancer. Though doctors kept insisting I had it, no one seemed to be interested in treating it. They implied that I was being a hypochondriac for worrying about it and should wait until the pain became "unbearable" to begin treatment.

Was there more to this dream than I thought?

I've also written, at length (and how!) about the "pink" crusade against breast cancer (I almost said "for" breast cancer) and about how it has mowed down all other disease-related campaigns. I'm afraid it has, folks, with an oversaturation that is beginning to make me frankly sick.

Yes, we need awareness of the various types of cancer that women (and men, and children) suffer and die from. We need to campaign, but this aggressively? The breast cancer juggernaut has grown so formidable now that they can and do use the word "boobies" in their merchandise without any sense that it is insulting to women.

There is no comparable term for an ovary, yet when it becomes diseased, the outcome can be fatal. In many cases there are few, or even no symptoms. No x-ray, no blood test, not even a palpation to determine if you have it or not.

In my dream, the doctors sort of guessed at the diagnosis, then left me pretty much alone with it except for a useless, generic "support group". It was a nightmare, of course. Now that I've had some time to mull it over, I think I can see why the "ovarian movement" has chosen such a strange emblem.

At first glance, it's odd. You're supposed to paint your toenails teal. I guess I'm an old stick-in-the-mud (and my toes are ugly enough to frighten small children), but I can't bring myself to do it. And I just don't see that many teal toenails around.

For one thing, they'd only be visible during flip-flop weather. That limits their visibility considerably. Older women might be a little reluctant. Though the campaign insists the teal polish is widely available, I wonder if that's true.

The truth is, this rather strange campaign is an attempt to survive the pink tsunami that has pretty much drowned other diseases. I also suspect all the other colours had already been taken. A lot of men probably don't know what the word teal means, and to me it's a sort of military color. It also has so many shades that it's hard to fix on it exactly (whereas, for some reason or other, pink is pink: a colour both innocuous, as in baby girls, and fluffily sexy, as in Playboy bunnies).

But you have to give them credit for trying something original. I'm afraid we've come to the point of Not-Another-Charity Syndrome, and (as I wrote yesterday) ovaries just aren't as cute, fun, perky and sexy as (slim, attractive young women's) breasts. They scare us. They pump out hormones, spew out eggs. And they're even more dangerous when they STOP spewing out eggs.

And even if they are the source of life itself, which they are, there's an odd sort of stigma attached to them. They're reproductive organs, not bouncy fun sexual attractants hiked up into enticing cleavage by lacy bras. Ovaries aren't sexy. Think about it. See any irony here?

But boobs (sorry, breasts) mean. . . what? A sexual turn-on for men. (Come on, admit it.) A badge of youth, at least the perky high ones. Part of a womanly shape: i.e., at puberty these things just pop out, like it or not, and you have them for the rest of your life. They also mean, and many people think of this with disgust, the ability to literally feed and nurture a baby, to keep it alive with your own body. Do it, yes, but do it alone, in a dark public washroom or, better yet, at home.

So for some, the purpose for which breasts are designed is somehow disgusting. So the campaign must have decided to focus on the "fun" aspects of breasts, the cheerleaders with bouncy little tits, the tight pink tshirts with "provocative" slogans on them. The boobies.

Leaving the ovarian camp scrambling for something that hasn't already been taken.

I can't tell at this stage of my life if I'm going to get ovarian cancer or not. At this point it's a dread-word, sort of like "pancreatic": many people see it as a death sentence.

Meantime, on the pink front, the news is better. Early detection means you just might be able to keep those perky little organs and survive.

I wish the teal-toe brigade well, but there's something kind of strange about it, a contradiction: proclaim it, but at the same time keep it hidden. The thing is, people are NOT going to ask you about your pedicure if you wear normal shoes, which most people in Canada do for 10 months of the year (and, around these parts, 11 or 12 months). And the color (darkish blue-green) is, for most people, a little too goth to be flattering. Those who don't ask about it might wonder why you chose such an oddball shade.

I can hear the ovarian camp asking me: well, do you have a better idea? I'd include some sort of egg imagery, but people might find that just as disgusting as breast- feeding. Eggs? What does that have to do with ovarian cancer?

The body is the arena for cancer, and it can strike like a cobra and do its deadly business anywhere. North Americans have so much shame and disgust about the body that they must cloak diseases like cancer in terms that are, sometimes, downright cute. Makes it more palatable, somehow.

I'd like to see stats on how much these two causes bring in annually. It would probably cause ME disgust, but for reasons of my own.

http://members.shaw.ca/margaret_gunning/betterthanlife.htm
(The following is from the tealtoes.org web site.)

Raising Ovarian Cancer Awareness

The Story of Teal Toes

Scene: School bus stop, the week after Labor Day.
(Usual hellos, how's the school year going etc.)

Tori:	Wow! New pedicure?
Carey:	Yeah!
Susan:	What color is that? Blue?
Carey:	No, it's teal. September is Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month and teal is the awareness color.
Judy:	Gorgeous. Ovarian cancer? Isn't that what that new vaccine is for?
Carey:	No, there is nothing like that for OC. In fact, it is often not diagnosed until the disease has progressed.
Tori:	But I thought that is what we get a pap smear for!
Carey:	Nope, there is no test for OC. The symptoms are often hard to see. They are: Bloating Pelvic or abdominal pain Difficulty eating or feeling full quickly Urinary symptoms (urgency or frequency)
Judy:	I think a friend of mine's mother had that. She just thought it was a tummy thing until it was too late. Why haven't we heard more about this?
Carey:	That's why I painted my toes! So people would ask!
Susan:	Who did them?
Carey:	That new nail place over by the theater. They carry all the OPI colors, including this special teal.
Tori:	Hey, let's go tomorrow! Meet me there!

This "conversation" was compiled from the various conversations I had at the bus stop, gym, yoga class, a bridal shower and various other places this past September after painting my toes teal. There were many other teal toes by the end of the month.
Ovarian cancer is called the silent killer, it whispers. We have all been bombarded with information about breast cancer, it's time to extend this awareness to its "cousin", ovarian cancer (the "breast cancer gene" can also trigger ovarian cancer).
Ideas for a "Teal Toes" campaign:

September, Ovarian Cancer awareness month, is the perfect time for one last pedicure for a cure, and trying an "untraditional" color.
For most women, teal is an "untraditional" enough color that it does spark conversations, leading to further awareness.
While "untraditional", teal is nevertheless pretty!