Disclaimer: this may be interpreted as one of those "politically incorrect" post. Might want to just skip it.
I have thought about this post for many weeks now, I have debated whether or not to even mention the subject but time and time again this subject gets under my skin. This is not to take away from anyone's cancer battle. My mom has two dear friends that battled cancer. One does victory laps in her beautiful pool in her backyard and one does victory laps in heaven. Every cancer fighter deserves medals for their bravery.
It seems just taboo to even mention this...
Here's the thing. There are pink ribbons ON EVERYTHING. I have a bag of Sun chips that is pink in the pantry, Energizer batteries, if it stands still long enough in a store someone is going to stick a pink ribbon on it. Susan G. Komen has mastered the way to market a disease. Susan died in the late 70s and her sister was in marketing and made it her pledge to help fund breast cancer so that they could find a cure. And man did she do it!! Don't get me wrong, thank goodness she did. They have found ways to treat breast cancer and more importantly they have promoted preventing it. BUT breast cancer isn't the only cancer that is out there. If pancreatic cancer received a 10th of the funding that breast cancer did they may have better answers for us.
This hasn't just been on my mind since Craig was diagnosed, it was just a smaller soap box at the time. I worked with a local hospital several years back on the marketing of their new heart health unit. Did you know that heart disease is the number one killer of women, not breast cancer? If you want to support women's health throw your money on educating women how they can keep their hearts healthy. That is much easier to solve than a disease that comes out of no where at times.
When Craig was first diagnosed I found a website that said that pancreatic cancer was so underfunded for several reasons. One of the main ones was the fact that it was so hard to prevent since the pancreas is hidden behind a couple organs. The symptoms are not alarming until they persist or jaundice surfaces and then it is normally in late stages. The other reason is there are not "spokespeople" out there to help move the research along. With the odds that go along with the disease there isn't much of a "team" to join. There are two walks in Louisville alone that support breast cancer. There isn't one to support any GI cancers with in 100 miles.
Last night I was reading an article on treatment that is being worked on in Cincinnati. A drug that was discovered in 2002. 2002! The researchers are hoping it gets to a phase I clinical trial by mid-next year. The funding to push these things through just isn't there.
Don't get me wrong, Save the Ta-tas, Fight Like a Girl, wear your pink and wear it proud. BUT don't do it at the sacrifice of the pancreas, the colon, the liver, hundreds of pediatric cancer, lung cancer, brain cancer etc etc. We may not have the cute slogans but we have family members suffering. And suffering with little medical hope.
I have posted a link from Good Morning America a couple weeks ago. Patrick Swayze died of pancreatic cancer after battling 22 months. His wife was interviewed by Robin Roberts who is a breast cancer survivor. The interview highlights my point much better than I am doing in this post. Pancreatic cancer is where breast cancer was 20 years ago and it needs help. It needs marketing, it needs walks, it needs funding, it needs corporation to get behind it like breast cancer!
One day in the oncologist office it was pink out day. I asked one of the nurse when purple out day was. She didn't even realize that was the color for Pancreatic cancer, as she was treating my husband for the disease! Most people don't even know the color for pancreatic cancer but they know about the pink.
Again I am not dogging breast cancer fighters we just need to spread the love so that other cancer can share in the success.
Signs and symptoms of pancreatic cancer:
- Upper abdominal pain that may radiate to your back
- Yellowing of your skin and the whites of your eyes (jaundice)
- Loss of appetite
- Weight loss
- Depression
- Blood clots
Well at least I am not the only one.
After I explained myself to the RN at the office she said "well it sounds like a good job for you."
Well I do look good in purple....
10 comments:
Michelle, it is baffling how much pancreatic cancer reasearch is behind some of the other major cancer researches. I found a web site called pancreatic action network early on in that first week when I started looking up information about pancreatic cancer. Their address it pancan.org. It is a really good site for people to look up info on and find ways to support the research. I sent letters to my congressmen after reading the page to support a bill that would support some extra funding for pancreatic cancer research, then forwarded the page about it along to a few people so that they could write letters too. Even got a letter back in the mail from Mitch McConnell saying that he does support the bill. If it weren't for Patrick Swayze having this type of cancer recently most people would never have even thought about pancreatic cancer. November is pancreatic cancer awareness month according to the web site. I wish more people knew that right now and it had a lot more publicity. I have always liked purple too. I will be wearing it more often now.
Michelle,
I completely understand your angst in this post and I agree with you on all points - from beginning to end. We also have several friends that have survived brest cancer thanks to the research and medical break throughs and earlier detection of the disease.
While I am certain that you and Craig look great in purple (he looked pretty good in green and gold) I do not know if there is even a color for prostate cancer. I am a survivor of two years. We have a great robot to deal with the disease.
Please feel good about your post and your advocacy. Happy Thanksgiving.
Well said Michelle!!! And you DO look good in purple ;) ...more prayers for all things from God, ShannonJoe
AMEN SISTER! Thank you. Again, with all due respect to my friends, family and patients with breast cancer, I am thrilled that we have advances we have gained from the funding from movements like Komen that will save their lives and hopefully prevent or help with early detection for many many more. I hear you 100% though, I get a little selfishly disheartened on behalf of friends like Craig or my brain cancer patients when I see pink everything down to Campbell's soup cans and I don't think the general public even understands that cancer can start in the brain. And then talk about not a pretty cancer, brain. Or no face for our cancer. We had Ted Kennedy as our token famous person. "Gray" for glioma has a long way to go. Anyway, you make excellent excellent points Michelle, things I think about daily at work. I wear my Lance Armstrong LiveStrong yellow band everyday just as sort of a support to all cancer fighters and survivors and one of my patients with a really rare chordoma said to me "Hey, thats a Chordoma yellow, right?" I felt almost bad telling him no, talk about no attention or funding for a disease, his chordoma has like none. But his wife told me we have a display of all the cancers and their respective colored support bracelets on display somewhere (I have yet to go find it) and she said from that they learned chordoma is bright yellow. I'm babbling, but my main point is, I believe God puts us all in places and with certain challenges for reasons we don't always understand in the moment, and I don't know why Craig has to go through was he has and is enduring, but I do think you Michelle, as talented and passionate as you are, might have been tasked with making this your cause, the Merimee Foundation for Pancreatic Cancer, and why not have a living spokesperson and namesake in Craig? Channel your resources and use your voice my friend. I 100% agree with your entire post and totally think you should do this, you could save countless lives.
And to Rick Blair above, congrats on being a survivor! The prostate cancer color is a beautiful turquoise blue.
I completely respect you pointing out the imbalance in the focus of the general public- including myself- and I appreciate your efforts to open our eyes. I am a fan of purple, too and only wish I could give EVERY color of the rainbow the attention that those suffering deserve.
Kelly
I love you because you always speak your mind! (Just like me!). So, what do you want to do?! Do you want to organize a walk? Make some purple t-shirts?! Let's do it!! I know I don't live there anymore, but I'd love to help you in any capacity I can!!!!llll Maybe we should plan a walk to raise money...you could donate all of the $ to pancreatic cancer research. I could design shirts?! Seriously, let me know if you're interested! Like I said, I am more than willing to help! And you know everyone else would too!!
http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/NCI/research-funding
Just some more info.
Hi Michelle, I love this! I have said the same thing myself. My mother had ovarian cancer (ribbon color teal) and yes all cancers deserve the proper funding and support.
We've been thinking of you here and have told other BCHers you need their prayers.
-Kathy Furnish
Hi Michelle, I'm a friend of Craig's through my brother. He and Craig were great childhood friends and always played sports together at St. Edwards. My thoughts and prayers are with you and your family.
More to the point, I made this argument several times over the past year as one of my work colleagues was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He was much older than Craig and waited too late to have chemo so I like the fact that Craig is addressing it now. I enjoyed reading your take and support it 100%.
My name is Scott Huston and my brother is Todd. Please tell Craig I said hello and to keep getting better. the last time I saw Craig was in traffic school probably ten years ago!
May God bless..
Michelle, there are so many people who would throw you up on their shoulders and celebrate you for posting this truth. In fact, I can't remember the source right now, there was speculation about two years ago that the "pink" campaign would make breast cancer too "cute" and, therefore, ignore the terrible mental, physical and emotional pain and suffering that not only these women experience, but cancer patients as a whole. Cancer is not "cute." I get why the pink campaign exists, but I too have a friend who is a pancreatic cancer survivor and it made me sad that no one was marketing for her.
Stephanie (Bell) Davidson
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