Buckle up ladies, Puketober is upon us

Moth: Really enjoyed reading the post. For de novo folks we tend to be left out, screwed from the beginning....

moth really great article. Tinkerbell, as de novo, I agree.

While I'm here, Zills kindly mentioned some comments I made two years ago on this thread, and I would like to repost for new readers. It was in response to a new member who asked why so many of us object to the Pinktober stuff:

.... The pink celebrations and marketing are inappropriate. We are talking about a disease. Pink parties and merchandise usually raise very little money that actually goes to research or to help cancer patients deal with the disruption of their lives and the financial devastation. Often most of the money just goes back into the awareness machine or to company profits.

The pink celebration perpetuates the trivialization and often sexualization of breast cancer. It marginalizes the people who will die from this disease (through no fault of their own), because they do not fit the narrative of the victorious survivor, the image that brings in the dollars.

And about AWARENESS:

What does "awareness" mean when people are not aware that 25-30% of early stagers (I-III) will have a metastatic recurrence, the incurable, lethal form of the disease? What does awareness mean when people are not aware that only around 7% of money raised goes toward research for a cure or normal lifespan? What does awareness mean when men are not aware they can get breast cancer and so will be diagnosed later and have poorer survival? What does awareness mean when women are not aware that mammograms are not a cure, and do not always "catch it early"? What does awareness mean when people think reconstruction is a great free boob job and do not understand the pain and complications reconstruction can entail, and when some surgeons still refuse to give a woman a smooth flat chest if she asks for that? What does awareness mean when our friends, coworkers and even family do not realize we are forever changed and often forever suffering side-effects of treatment even though we "look good"?

Moth, that's a great article. Thank you for taking the time to write it, to put these complex feelings into words, and hopefully raise some real awareness.

Great guest post, moth.
You coined a good word describing those with mbc: unsurvivor. What I especially appreciate is your asking those with lesser stage bc to use their advocacy to shine the spotlight on women and men with metastatic breast cancer. And I like that you give them this food for thought:

“Whatever you do, whatever you say, imagine doing and saying it in a room full of metastatic patients.
Imagine saying it to someone who has been told that they're out of treatment options and that they're being referred to EOL care. Would you shake pink pom poms, would you joke about saving the ta-tas, would you just talk about how you need to be positive and fight, would you pass the cupcakes made to look like breasts to the young woman who is in her 20s or 30s and is dying of this disease?"

Because really, they should be as outraged as we are about that kind of frivolity surrounding a deadly disease..

thank you all for your kind comments about that article. I'm glad that so many of you thought it resonated

Please share it widely! Thank you 😊

moth, this was really well written. I intend to reblog this to close out BCAM - Moth hits exactly where the focus should be and what early stagers should be doing - we can't do this alone.

I'd like to send them this thread! Please send that practice an email about how offensive that is to us dealing w/BC & MBC

Here's to the end of Pinktober.

But wait, one more article!!

https://advancedbreastcancer.net/living/stigma-mal...