Cancer’s not a fad

Enough with the pink already. I’m glad to know that everyone is concerned about my boobs, but really, they get plenty of attention already. They are very nice, still fairly perky, and collect a lot of dropped food. They don’t need you to wear pink shoes on the football field to show your support.

Pink was already a problematic color before cancer claimed it. It was Barbie’s color. That was enough association with breasts. And it was the color of Pepto-Bismol. So it was sort of the big boob, feminine, upset stomach color.

I’m ready for all this cancer pink mania to stop.  It’s becoming counterproductive. I’m more than a year behind in getting my mammogram and seeing a breast cancer buffalo doesn’t really encourage me to make that appointment. In fact I’m now afraid that I’ll enter a waiting room full of women and men all in pink, all chanting some cancer slogan, trying to get me to buy pink legal pads, pink jewelry, pink floor mats, and pink whole wheat bread. I don’t know when I’ll make my appointment.

I do have an appointment to check my cervix for cancer for the fourth time, but I haven’t see any products for cervical cancer. I guess I can show up for the colposcopy wearing whatever I like. No one cares. The market only cares about my secondary sexual characteristics, not my primary ones. And that’s OK by me. I’d like to keep my cervix, uterus, and ovaries to myself. They’re mine and I’ll take responsibility for them.

If you want to do something for a woman with breast cancer, how about you take care of her kids while she’s going in for treatment, or drive her there and back? Or make a donation for research on something like adrenal cancer which has a poorer prognosis and less research wealth.

Every time I see a breast cancer commercial or a product being marketed with pink breast cancer ribbons, I think of Barbara Ehrenreich’s “Welcome to CancerLand” article in Harper’s Magazine. I particularly liked her observation that “men diagnosed with prostate cancer do not receive gifts of Matchbox cars.” A Google search for “testicular cancer products” only returns 312,000 results and most of those are for t-shirts and bracelets.

Google has 25,600,000 listings for “breast cancer products.” From a site devoted to all popular cancers, I now know that cervical cancer’s color is teal (which is nice because if I do get this cancer I’ve always liked teal and wouldn’t turn down a teal mug or t-shirt). I also discovered that testicular cancer’s color is orchid, which is pretty close to lavender so I sort of wonder how some marketing firm selected these colors. And I should probably tell my friends who love wearing black that they are supporting melanoma awareness. Although not all cancer product marketing sites agree on color. Testicular cancer’s color wars might be won by goldenrod.

I’m certain that in the 2050′s people will look back on this decade and cancer pink will be one of the identifying characteristics. Like pet rocks were of the 1970s. Let’s not treat cancer like a fad.