Every month needs to be Breast Cancer Awareness Month

I’m sure you’ve noticed by now that October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

And in October, the pink ribbon reigns supreme and breasts and related cancer survival stories are thrust before our eyes on every social media platform and news feed, calling for us to check our breasts, have a mammogram and open our wallets to donate to research (undeniably important messages). There is always SO much media attention brought to the cause, particularly in the first week of October, that sometimes I find myself scrolling on by all the supposedly encouraging posts and uplifting quotes as they can bring back some unpleasant memories for me.

Even before being diagnosed with breast cancer 16 years ago, I was buying all the pink ribbon paraphernalia because a) I knew it was for a good cause and b) I’ve always loved the colour pink (especially the sparkly, glittery kind).

And I’ve bought them all; Tshirts, wrist bands, pencils, sticky-notes, bracelets, pins, ribbons, bandanas, lipsticks, underwear, notebooks, reusable shopping bags, iced buns and pyjamas. As someone who has personally benefited so greatly from research into breast cancer, I am grateful for the donations to charities and organisations who in any way help fund research or support women and men going through the disease.

However, I do remember a time when I felt a great amount of shame and embarrassment when sales assistants asked me if I wanted to buy this-or-that to support breast cancer research. I know it was just a part of their rigmarole, asking every person who fronted up to the checkout, but I felt like they were asking only me because they knew that I'd survived it (they weren't and they didn't, it was just part of their job). I felt that I had a bright pink, neon sign above my head which screamed ‘Breast cancer was here!’ and I didn't want that to be me.

I did not, in any way, shape or form, want to be aligned with what is typically an older person’s disease (average age of diagnosis in Australia is 60 years of age) and felt that if I bought the pink merchandise, the truth that I’d been diagnosed at 29 would have been revealed. I was just so ashamed that breast cancer happened to me.

Back then, it also irked me no end the way some huge, multinational companies would advertise their commitment to breast cancer research with a sanctimonious pink ribbon on their October product packaging, but upon reading the fine print, realised that their generosity extended to one, two or five cents per product sold. I realise that five cents per product could add up to a sizeable donation if hundreds and thousands of any one product is sold, but even still. Five cents? Let’s face it, it is hardly a big commitment for billion dollar companies, and some are obviously making extra tidy profits due to the goodwill of consumers in the name of breast cancer awareness.

In a podcast and Instagram post, Breastcancer.org discuss the ‘Think Before You Pink’ campaign of another U.S. based group called Breast Cancer Action who ask people to consider the following four questions before buying a pink product:

• How much money from the purchase will go to a breast cancer organisation?

• Which breast cancer organisation is the donation being directed to?

• What donation amount the company has set as its maximum donation to the cause?

• Does the product put you or someone you love at risk of getting breast cancer?

These questions are not easily answered, especially the last one. If you’ve ever searched for a list of products which contain known or probable carcinogens, then you will know that many, many cosmetic, beauty and cleaning products are on that list. Not to mention alcohol!What is a girl to do?

At BCNA Field of Women at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG), 2014

My take on it is this:

If a pink ribbon stamped on a product convinces any one of us to buy it over a product without it, all well and good. We can read the fine print and make an informed decision for ourselves about whether the cost and donation ratio is worth it. I know that even the promise of a five-cent donation can make us feel like we are doing good in the world of raising funds for research into breast cancer.

But I think what is even more important than the promise of that donation is the promise that you will make to yourself in committing to knowing your own body and checking your own breasts.

According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, ‘there were around 145,000 fewer screening mammograms conducted by BreastScreen Australia in January to June 2020 compared with January to June 2018.’

Obviously, one of the big factors contributing to reduced screening numbers is Covid-19 and its repercussions in all our lives. But please, please, please, whatever you do - do not let Breast Cancer Awareness month go by without being consciously and acutely aware of the look and the feel of your own breasts (even is you are under thirty years of age), because if there is anything that research has proven, it is that early detection is key to long term survival.

Then, be sure to repeat that breast check each and every single month which follows October forevermore, because for each of us, if early detection is key, then every month on the calendar needs to be breast cancer awareness month.

I am not nearly as triggered now as I used to be about Breast Cancer Awareness Month, but even so, I haven’t bought anything in the name of breast cancer awareness for ages. Instead, I’ve preferred to make my own personal donations to various cancer related causes including the National Breast Cancer Foundation, Breast Cancer Network Australia, the Cancer Council, the McGrath Foundation and the Leukaemia Foundation.

Perhaps it is a sign that I am making peace with the pink ribbon and my status as a breast cancer survivor. Perhaps it is just that so much time has passed and I’m a lot older now (and my cheeks get pink from hot flushes rather than embarrassment which in itself is another embarrassment). In any case, there are still a few weeks left of this month for me to find those pink products, read the fine print and possibly do my little bit for awareness and research.

In the meantime, I’d love to know:

- What was the last ‘pink’ product you bought and why did you buy it?

- How has your relationship with the pink ribbon changed over time?

Until then,

Survivor Status: Ongoing and Aware

Christina

Survivor Status: Ongoing

It has taken a long while, but I am finally here...

Hello! My name is Christina and I'm new around here (as are you). Welcome, and thank-you for being here, no matter how or why you found your way to this page. It seems fitting that it is the beginning of Breast Cancer Awareness Month in Australia.

I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2005, at only 29 years of age (which is very young, considering the average age of breast cancer diagnosis in Australia is 60 years). The chance of being diagnosed with breast cancer in that year, and at that age, was 0.003%.

My breast cancer was an aggressive, hormone positive tumour in my left breast; I found it one day thanks in part to my over cautious personality as well as Australian icon Olivia Newton-John, because she had been spruiking her gel-filled, breast cancer detection pads on morning television. (I had thought of buying some, but never did and then didn't need to.) Never has something the size of two peas (14 mm) caused me so much grief.

If you have also had breast cancer (or know someone who has, and that is pretty much everyone) then you'll know what came next for me; a gamut of tests and biopsies, a flurry of appointments with a surgeon, oncologist and fertility specialist, a hastily scheduled lumpectomy (excision of the lump via surgery), ovarian suppression (Zoladex), chemotherapy (6 months), radiotherapy (6 weeks), adjuvant hormone therapy in the form of Herceptin (12 months) and Tamoxifen (5 years).

I didn't know what had befallen me and why.

I was 29 years old and knew nothing much at all of the medical merry-go-round (or un-merry-go-round as the case may be).

I was meant to be starting a family, not trying to survive breast cancer.

***

I was diagnosed with breast cancer on March 30th 2005, whereon the crappiest months of my life began. Being diagnosed with cancer at 29 and being told you can't have kids for five years, and perhaps never, will certainly create some issues for you.

These were the words I wrote in my first pen-and-paper diary entry almost twelve months after my diagnosis. It was momentous because I'd been a prolific diary writer since the age of eleven, when my aunt and uncle gave me a diary with small pink and blue flowers on the cover for Christmas in 1986. It quickly became my most treasured possession. Something I didn't know how much I needed until I had it in my hands.

With a page for each day of the year, I recorded my Grade 6 musings almost daily in 1987 (not much went on, I must say, as many lines went unwritten). I loved writing with my scented pens because the ink was laced with a fruity fragrance to match (the pink strawberry pen was my favourite, followed by the blueberry one).

My diary writing continued in carefully selected journals throughout my years of secondary school, university, my first teaching job, marriage and my overseas travels.

However, like so many things in my life after my diagnosis, my written diary entries stopped.

I didn't have the words to describe my diagnosis and what was happening to me. I was overrun with medical appointments and treatments and by the end of the day, I was depleted of any emotional reserve to record my daily thoughts and experiences.

A few months into my diagnosis, I started tapping away (pounding?) the computer keys to record my thoughts in a digital format. I wrote 12 000 words trying to process my diagnosis and the tumultuous months of treatment, printed it and shared my musings with my husband, parents and sisters. It remains a very raw and intimate document of thoughts.

I was a changed person when I picked up my blue pen again early in 2006, around the time of my 30th birthday. Breast cancer had changed everything; my perspective, my outlook, my hopes, my ability to dream and my voice. But I wrote and I read, I cried and lamented, I rejoiced (sometimes) and put one foot in front of the other (most days) to ever so slowly find my way in life again post diagnosis.

It has taken years. More than a decade in fact.

Through my diary writing, I've learned quite a few things about breast cancer, survival, resilience, courage, grief, loss, life, childlessness and chronic illness (to name the most pertinent).

Only now have I felt courageous enough to share my story.

I'd love to know more about your story if you'd like to share; your diagnosis, how you identify with the word 'survivor' (or not) and whether you are also looking for the courage to share your story - or how you've already found it.

Survivor Status: Ongoing,

Christina