Pink Ribbon Pastiche

[proteanmix]

I was talking with a coworker today about the plethora of cancer walks and drives I see advertised on the subway in the morning. I was telling her that I don't know why I feel so disturbed by the cheery faces of survivors and their loved ones smiling back at me from the glossy posters. It's totally incongruous.

Basically I was trying to figure out the source of my malapropos emotions. Maybe I'm missing the whole point of the walks. It's a time for those with cancer (typically breast cancer or AIDS) to raise money and awareness and to bond with people who have and are experiencing the same horrible affliction. But there's totally something negative I CANNOT shake from these ads that hit me every time I see them. I wish I could describe my thoughts and feelings about them and maybe I could if I took more time to think about it.

Anyway, this is what my coworker sent me in response to what we talked about. It's an article by Barbara Ehrenreich and this paragraph basically is a good approximation of what I feel about these events and their associated paraphernalia

And bears are only the tip, so to speak, of the cornucopia of pink-ribbon-themed breast-cancer products. You can dress in pink-beribboned sweatshirts, denim shirts, pajamas, lingerie, aprons, loungewear, shoelaces, and socks; accessorize with pink rhinestone brooches, angel pins, scarves, caps, earrings, and bracelets; brighten up your home with breast-cancer candles, stained-glass pink-ribbon candleholders, coffee mugs, pendants, wind chimes, and night-lights; pay your bills with special BreastChecks or a separate line of Checks for the Cure. "Awareness" beats secrecy and stigma of course, but I can't help noticing that the existential space in which a friend has earnestly advised me to "confront [my] mortality" bears a striking resemblance to the mall.

Freaking ay, I've gone out and bought this stuff in support! My favorite pair of tweezers are Tweezerman Breast Cancer Awareness Special Editions! I'm not sure what I'm supporting though. I mean I'm sure my money is going to finding a cure for cancer but I think I'm supporting something else I don't want to support.

Maybe I feel "confronting one's mortality" should be met with more gravitas. A sense of humor always helps, but when to employ it? Death is serious...it's just something that happens to everyone like getting gum stuck on the bottom of your shoe. It's probably the consumerism attached to the whole process, perhaps pushing the limits of tasteful consumerism?

 

[heart]

I think about this too and also from another angle that disturbs me. I can't imgaine what it's like to be a cancer patient right now. They are pressured (it seems to me) to act as if the cancer doesn't even touch them, mentally, emotionally and even physically. It's just a growing oppurtunity, something they "conquer."

There's a commerical on TV where the person lists off this marathon of chores (that would wear me out!) and on the way home stops off to have chemo or radiation and then says with this serene smile: "I have cancer, cancer doesn't have me."

So great, now the cancer patient can't even complain about feeling sick or feel they can take it easy when their symptoms or treatments take too heavy a toll, they have to be a champion every single moment.

Chronic pain and nausea are exhausting. There's no way around that. If a cancer patient's experience leads to a lot of this, they aren't going to be bouncing off the walls and taking the world by the tail.

I hate to see the image and expectation put out there that they should be. Even if they get relief from symptoms from meds, the meds have side-effects usually feeling drowsy etc. Goodness, give them a break, don't make them feel they need be superhuman heroes every living moment of the day just because society has a problem with handling the idea that there could be suffering that gets a person down every now and then.