Many of you know about the recent loss of a lovely friend and family member to metastatic breast cancer. She was 55. Her first grandchild is due this January.
The cruelty of cancer is relentless.
My friend had access to great care and the mind-bogglingly expensive 'designer drugs' that did little to stem the tide of her cancer. They didn't improve her quality of life, either. In fact, treatment further weakened an already impaired immune system and ultimately she died of pneumonia after three weeks in the hospital.
At her memorial service this past Friday the Seattle sky was cloudless. Many of us were too warm in fall clothes but there was a lovely patio adjoining the reception area so we stood out there, remembering, laughing, letting tears flow, talking about our dogs and the weather.
There was a box with programs and next to that, another one with pink ribbons and pins.
I hesitated.
The hesitation, in and of itself, infuriated me. I didn't want the politics of cancer to intrude on this quiet, private evening. But that is what a pink ribbon has become: a mixed signal. Where it may have once stood for hope and advancement, it now also represents commercialization and 'branding' (a term I've come to dislike) that has absolutely nothing to do with or for cancer. That simple ribbon, which I wore proudly when diagnosed in 1998, is now seen to mask the darker realities of cancer: treatments that don't work, the sorrow of lives cut short.
But the people who put the ribbons out had no idea about mixed messages or health culture. So I put one on my collar. And as soon as the service was over I left it behind.
Monday, September 26, 2011
The cruelty of cancer is relentless.
My friend had access to great care and the mind-bogglingly expensive 'designer drugs' that did little to stem the tide of her cancer. They didn't improve her quality of life, either. In fact, treatment further weakened an already impaired immune system and ultimately she died of pneumonia after three weeks in the hospital.
At her memorial service this past Friday the Seattle sky was cloudless. Many of us were too warm in fall clothes but there was a lovely patio adjoining the reception area so we stood out there, remembering, laughing, letting tears flow, talking about our dogs and the weather.
There was a box with programs and next to that, another one with pink ribbons and pins.
I hesitated.
The hesitation, in and of itself, infuriated me. I didn't want the politics of cancer to intrude on this quiet, private evening. But that is what a pink ribbon has become: a mixed signal. Where it may have once stood for hope and advancement, it now also represents commercialization and 'branding' (a term I've come to dislike) that has absolutely nothing to do with or for cancer. That simple ribbon, which I wore proudly when diagnosed in 1998, is now seen to mask the darker realities of cancer: treatments that don't work, the sorrow of lives cut short.
But the people who put the ribbons out had no idea about mixed messages or health culture. So I put one on my collar. And as soon as the service was over I left it behind.
Monday, September 26, 2011
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