Stunned

This years Facebook meme for breast cancer awareness (ha!) has created a firestorm. I'm not sure if the ones other years have, but this one certainly has. As I was perusing blog posts, I was directed to a post written about the bra-color one. It is written by a woman who had a double mastectomy in order to save her life. I dare you to write this and not feel stunned to your core.

In the name of awareness

I am not stunned that she wrote it. I am stunned by her strength. I am stunned at the way society can hurt when it tries to help, because (as a general whole) it doesn't think things through. I am not able to put into words how profoundly her post has touched me. I wish mom were still here, just so I could share this with her, let her know that there are other women out there who understand some of what she went through.

And when you are done reading that, if you feel it needful to do something, ACT. She has a link to a post on turning awareness into action at the bottom of the one already linked. I have read over and over the past two days the same thought: Aren't we aware enough already? Isn't the time past for awareness, and the time for action NOW? I know that I can't afford to donate right now, and my own medical status is such that doing something like a walk is out of the question - although I would love to be able to do the "Walk to Remember" or "Relay for Life" in mom's honor some year. I can blog, though, and I can educate others about what I know.

I am 95% certain that I will get breast cancer some day. My mom had it, her mother died of it (it metastasized to her brain 6 weeks after dx and killed her), and mom was pretty sure that her grandmother also had it. My sister and I are both on the watch for it, because we know it's coming. Educate yourself. Educate those around you. Speak up for those who can't. Be an advocate. Do what you can. And hopefully build yourself a supportive network of people that you will hopefully never have to use.

And how appropriate that I read this exactly 7 years from the day that mom was diagnosed with the ovarian cancer that would take her life 26 months later. This is hell week for me - almost every year for 4 years in a row, mom was diagnosed with cancer.