Hiding over here while the rocks fly my way...

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  • Running_Violet
    Running_Violet Member Posts: 17
    edited January 2010

    Thank you all for your considerate posts and your support.  I am especially touched that so many of you took time to respond to me since I am "new".  Well, new to this board, but certainly not new to cancer.

    Last night it was many things that got to me, and what didn't come out well in my first post that I had put on FB (but did in subsequent ones, and I won't bore you with them!) is that I truly do not believe that

    1) awareness is still a pressing issue--maybe I'm wrong but I find it hard to believe that most women still don't know about annual exams and mammograms

    2) that asking a woman to peek into her shirt and state her bra color will then prompt her to perform an exam or schedule a mammogram--if that's the point, why not just ask straight out for her to post a yes or no or it's on the calendar--and in this request include a link for directions on how to perform an exam or receive financial assistance if needed for a mammo

    3) that associating cancer or disease of any sorts with a game or humor is just not a tactful, appropriate way to approach trying to help

    4) as aside, but the use of "girls" alongside "men" is sexist and insulting

    5) the awareness campaign may have a double edge in that it promotes a false sense of security that annual exams and mammo's will sufficiently protect against developing breast cancer.  Sadly, I was one of those women (I've heard around 10%) whose breast tumor did not image by mammogram and thus did not become detected until most of my axillary nodes were pretty much destroyed by tumor burden. 

    Finally, as for the insensitive reminder of having lost my breasts, this was the easiest, clearest part to shoot back on the FB post late last night.  What I felt but couldn't put into words because I was so emotional is that it's not the actual loss of my breasts that bothers me so much (although I'd be lying if I said that I don't miss them at all); rather, the reminder of losing them in turn reminds me of everything else I have lost along the way and the things that I am scared I will continue to lose to this disease.  Things like time with my two young children, the chance to make a meaningful difference in the world, the experience of loving and being loved by an honest, decent man....my bucket list goes on and on....

    Anyway, when I feel a little less emotional I will make a separate (and shorter!) post introducing myself....I cannot deny it anymore; I have cancer, I am afraid, somedays I am hopeful, and regardless, I am ready to stare it in the face and finally ready to join the club.  Thank you all for making me feel welcome here.

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  • Bigapple09
    Bigapple09 Member Posts: 440
    edited January 2010

    What really got my goat was that many of the friends that posted their color in support of awareness, were people who could afford to and did not donate a dollar to the bc walk in October. It really did annoy me that people would use BC and game in the same sentence, and that they would trivialize it. There are real ways to raise awareness. This was just a game. Today's game is about how you wear your hair.

    Since I just lost my rads side implant and have a new and limited selection of bras to hold my prosthetic it was especially annoying, even more so when friends tried to guess my color,  I just made my status "Yes I know what it is about but I'm not playing." My cousin made her's "I want to make women aware that they need to squeeze their boobies to save their lives."

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  • nowords
    nowords Member Posts: 423
    edited January 2010

    This whole facebook thing and bra colors went viral and MSNBC site is reporting on it.

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  • Ezscriiibe
    Ezscriiibe Member Posts: 598
    edited January 2010

    I'm personally of the opinion that this is NOT a "BC AWARENESS" game, started by a concerned "girl" (woman).

    I personally believe it was started by a group of males who are getting a HUGE kick out of seeing women posting about their bras.

    As someone up-thread said, this raises "awareness" of self-exams or early detection, how? By looking at your own bra and coyly posting a color?

    I like the idea of posting a yes or no or a solid DATE with NO explanation. Let everyone figure it out, and let everyone see who is doing what -- as in how many are actually scheduling mammos or doing regular self-exams.

    I think there's a college dorm full of hairy testosterone rangers getting a HUGE laugh out of their stealth "game."

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  • navygirl
    navygirl Member Posts: 886
    edited January 2010

    I thought it was stupid as hell and had no desire to play. I'm glad you spoke up...people should be aware that there are REAL people behind the statistics and what they were doing was just D U M B. I did notice that the only people who sent it to me were people I used to work with who probably had no idea I had even gone through Breast Cancer. If I'd known you were being bombarded with harsh replies I'd have stuck up for you in my status :)

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  • jenn3
    jenn3 Member Posts: 3,316
    edited January 2010

    Before signing on here a few minutes ago I was on MSN's homepage and they actually have an article about women posting their bra colors on FB for BC awareness.  Craziness.  I simply ignored it once I found out what it was. 

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  • cherneski
    cherneski Member Posts: 726
    edited January 2010

    In any case here we are the month of January and BC Awareness was in the news!  Sad, Sick or whatever it was in the news.  Did it do us any good?  I doubt it, but I really dont see how it hurt awareness.  I for one think that awareness and early detection are crap, but making people think about bc in another month besides October cant hurt. 

    I will continue to scream from the mountain tops about bc until the day I die (or there is a cure that they give us).

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  • Estepp
    Estepp Member Posts: 6,416
    edited January 2010

    Oh sisters ( If I may say that)... I feel so bad... I did post to facebook... saying.. .in so many words... I do not need a bra anymore thanks to a good reconstruction.. and I feel SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO bad. I DID NOT have any idea this was a BC Awareness... I was under the impression... it was to mess with our men... ( Lord I am stupids at times).... as my facebook is only my BC sister and family.. and people who know me thru BC... so I thought I was making a  "funny".. I had no idea it was a " stand up to BC"...

    I removed it once I saw and I want to say I am sorry to my girls here...on BCO....

    Lord I am out of my mind at times..... I should have known...

    I do love showing what reconstruction did for me... and for many... BUT NOT in the way I just learned FB was doin the bra thing for BC awareness...

    Sorry ladies....I just wanted to drop in here and confess my sin.

    Laura

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  • lewing
    lewing Member Posts: 1,288
    edited January 2010

    A facebook friend shared this link - it resonated with me, and I thought it would with others here, too:

    http://toddlerplanet.wordpress.com/2010/01/08/in-the-name-of-awareness/

    I've seen a number of women (mainly, but not exclusively, BC survivors) use their FB status to call attention to the need for real action, not games.  I think that's great - so maybe, in a perverse way, the bra color thing *is* having a positive effect.

    Running Violet, thanks *so much* for starting this thread.

    Linda

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  • cheers247
    cheers247 Member Posts: 270
    edited January 2010

    When I saw this on FB I wrote "none, I HAVE breast cancer" in my status line.

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  • lassie11
    lassie11 Member Posts: 1,500
    edited January 2010

    The thing that made me aware enough to start having mammograms when I was around 50 was having a very good friend die of breast cancer. Some people take a lot of shaking to become sufficiently aware to get moving. If this silly game makes a few more women get out and get their mammograms started, maybe it isn't such a bad thing. We here are all too aware and really don't need any reminding at all - there are some out there who do.

    When I was first divorced I didn't want to see any of those darned Valentine's movies and events about happy couples in love "forever", didn't even want to hear about people getting married. My awareness was not the same as everyone else's and I had to remind myself of that.  Our experiences shape our reactions - everyone doesn't have the same experiences.

    And I don't mind going to weddings now. Even wore my foob to the last one.

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  • cp418
    cp418 Member Posts: 7,079
    edited January 2010

    I glanced at it and immedately felt is was thoughtless and insensitive against all those who have suffered from this disease.  I did not find it amusing as a game to discuss bra colors.  It makes me think it was a prank and nothing to do with BC support.

     http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/08/AR2010010803693.html?hpid=topnews

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  • wavdance
    wavdance Member Posts: 1
    edited January 2010

    I didn't find it offensive at all.   If it makes more people aware of our plight, the better.  I am also sorry if others got upset.   Take care all, and hope we all get thru the rough times.  

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  • Hattie
    Hattie Member Posts: 414
    edited January 2010

    probably was a prank, since now it's hair, or maybe someone really didn't get it and started the hair.

    I felt it could be interpreted as a sisterhood thing, and used the opportunity to gently remind friends to actually go get their mammos.  

    take care,

    --Hattie 

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  • apple
    apple Member Posts: 7,799
    edited January 2010

    Estepp..

    i am VERY stupid at times.. i just don't have a clue.

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  • Tripleneg65
    Tripleneg65 Member Posts: 2
    edited January 2010

    Well, I'm new to this site but I saw the "game" and was disgusted. It's too bad that people find "fun" with others that are suffering. It seems that jokes and fun are poked at people  and no one really thinks about the outcome. I did not respond--and I did not send it on to my friends. I think if we want to do something we should tell all of the "bra posters" to send $10 to the Breast Cancer research or projects in their areas so that we can increase the services to help find a cure. Maybe they will find themselves "color blind"!!!!

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  • Bigapple09
    Bigapple09 Member Posts: 440
    edited January 2010

    Here is my controversial FB Status that I posted this morning:

    Yesterday was the one year anniversary of Memorial Sloan Kettering calling to tell me they thought I had breast cancer again. It was one crazy year which ended with a bout with MRSA and a week in the hospital. I celebrated the end of that year by going to the gym this morning, it felt great. If you are really concerned about breast cancer awareness don't list your bra color (it actually upset a lot of BC survivors that I know) instead, make a donation in the names of all of the woman you know who have done battle and give us hope that our daughters will know a different future. There are no games in BC only battles.

    I'm not expecting any rocks, but I imagine some people will have red faces.

    Wendy

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  • cookiegal
    cookiegal Member Posts: 3,296
    edited January 2010

    I read the link on cp418...I guess the good to come of this is that Komen added more than 100,000 people to it's facebook page, which will allow them an inexpensive means of communication.

    It's sad because I know this hurt the feelings of the women hardest hit by the disease. Still I saw others in my family do it, because they thought it would be something positive.

    I guess both things can be true.

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  • jenn3
    jenn3 Member Posts: 3,316
    edited January 2010

    I went onto Facebook after signing off from here last night and had an email from a "friend" that I talk to on a fairly regular basis saying that now we're doing hair.  She instructed me to list how I was wearing my hair in my status, but shhhhh don't say anything this is messing with the men.  Really??  I doubt this is to bring awarness to BC - I think it's all fun and games.  Bringing awarness doesn't mean asking BC survivors their bra color and how the hair is done for the day.  Again, I didn't respond to it, but maybe I should saying I have no bra color to list since I lost by breast to cancer and no hair style to speak of since I also lost it to cancer.

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  • Estepp
    Estepp Member Posts: 6,416
    edited January 2010

    (((apple)))

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  • otter
    otter Member Posts: 6,099
    edited January 2010
    Running_Violet,

    I saw your thread about the FB “bra color” game a couple days ago, but I was still too upset about the game to respond coherently.  I think this was the original announcement that was being distributed via FB messages:

    “Some fun is going on.... just write the color of your bra in your status. Just the color, nothing else. And send this on to ONLY girls no men .... It will be neat to see if this will spread the wings of breast cancer awareness. It will be fun to see how long it takes before the men will wonder why all the girls have a color in their status... Ha.”

    What was odd about this was, I didn't get that memo until Thursday evening (Jan. 7).  Throughout that day, I had seen FB updates that consisted of nothing but one word – a color.  I had no idea what was going on.  Was it someone’s favorite color?  The color of their car?  Maybe their dog or cat???  I had no clue.  Plus, the colors were odd ones:  white, black, gray, burgundy, … "nude"???

    That afternoon, one of my BCO sisters posted an update that cleared things up.  She suggested that, instead of posting her bra color without any further explanation, someone who really wanted to promote “cancer awareness” should talk to someone who’d had cancer, or cook a meal for someone undergoing chemo, or see a doctor when she found something suspicious in her breast.  She said playing a silly FB game wasn’t going to help anybody.  I was cheering silently as I read her post.

    Then the criticism started rolling in.  Some of the comments were shocking.  In one of the milder ones, a woman said she understood that some people might think the game was silly; and she agreed that cancer was not a trivial thing.  But she did not understand why anyone “would be against any effort to keep awareness high,” regardless of whether or not that person thought the effort would be effective.  I was thinking I’d spent the whole day trying to figure out what the one-word updates meant; so the goal of “keeping awareness high” certainly hadn’t worked on me.

    Another of my wonderful chemo sisters pointed out that the FB bra-color game was not raising awareness in any meaningful way.  In fact, if anything, it was giving people the impression they were doing something useful when they really weren't. She asked whether anyone had actually learned anything about breast cancer as a result of women announcing their bra colors, except that some women get really p*ssed off when a deadly problem like breast cancer gets reduced to a FB game.  And, she said she was fed up with all the trivial claims about “cancer awareness.”

    I was cheering out loud by then.

    It wasn’t until later that evening that I finally received a FB message containing the rules of the game. From that message, I learned that it was supposed to be a "fun" way to "spread the wings of cancer awareness"... whatever that means.

    Like many of you here, I was disappointed and sadly disillusioned with the game, and women's willingness to believe that, by participating in it, they were "spreading cancer awareness."  This reporter from Newsweek was also disillusioned:  "What Color Is Your Bra?".

    otter
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  • lassie11
    lassie11 Member Posts: 1,500
    edited January 2010
    There is a Facebook fan site called "breast cancer awareness ♥ I updated my Status with my Bra colour ♥'s Photos". It appears to be British, has almost 54,000 members and has as its info a web site https://donate.cancerresearchuk.org/donate.asp?id=938 that seeks donations for cancer research. I don't know if this is good or bad - it just is.
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  • debbie6122
    debbie6122 Member Posts: 5,161
    edited January 2010

    Maybe the boys should post what color there underwear are if they can't get an erection, see if they think thati is funny or not

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  • Mai605
    Mai605 Member Posts: 64
    edited January 2010

    I think the game is silly, and when I first heard of it, wasn't too upset, because people are misinformed, and haven't walked in our shoes.  Like Otter said, they really believe they are helping!  I posted something on my page, similar to what Apple wrote, also letting everyone know the "game" did offend many suffering from bc.  Yesterday evening, my cousin posts this:

    "Way To Go Ladies!!!!!!!!!!  Your red, black, pink, blue, white, butterflied, cheetah printed and clear bra colors made the news tonight.  Facebook doesn't know who started it going, but Susan B Kolmen (Ummm, yea it's SUSAN G. KOMEN thank you very much) says it was a great way to raise awareness for breast cancer.  Way to go!  Post this to spread the word again!!"

    I wasn't mad at first.... but her post made my chest hurt!  I couldn't believe she posted this after I tried nicely explaining how this whole thing offended many.  First of all, is this for real?  I haven't been watching the news, and having done a lot of searching, but the few news articles I have read state the opposite, that the game was pointless and hurtful.  

    My cousin and I aren't extremely close, and I don't want to "get into it" with her on Facebook, but I'm so mad!  What would you guys do?

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  • thepinkbirdie
    thepinkbirdie Member Posts: 212
    edited January 2010

    I never read the entire email I received on Facebook, but did find out later what it was about.  I'm such a smart ass that I put something in response to it in my status suggesting that...

    "everyone go to the nearest store, buy a package of Ex-Lax.  Take ten pieces, sit on the toilet for 30 minutes then post the color, size and shape in your FB status." 

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  • NancyD
    NancyD Member Posts: 3,562
    edited January 2010

    I think it's a tempest in a c-cup.

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  • Ezscriiibe
    Ezscriiibe Member Posts: 598
    edited January 2010

    . . . I still say it was started by a bunch of frat boys getting a cheap laugh at women "showing" off their bras.

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  • NancyD
    NancyD Member Posts: 3,562
    edited January 2010

    I didn't know what it was about until well into the "project". Yes, it did nothing to really raise awareness about breast cancer...but I did see some very creative responses and that amused me. Other than that, I ignored it...a lesson my brothers have ingrained in me since they can be even more annoying when you respond to their teasing.

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  • kim40
    kim40 Member Posts: 904
    edited January 2010

    My SIL sent me the FB one about the hair.  I didn't partcipate in that one, thought it was kind of stupid really.....gone a bit too far.....

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