Awash in a Pink October

October is Breast Cancer Awareness month, always a tricky time for me. I had breast cancer twenty years ago and went through treatment from July 1996 through to mid-December, 1996. It was the whole nine yards, a lumpectomy, chemotherapy, radiation and five years of taking the prescription Tamoxifen. Some call it the "slash and burn" of cancer treatments but I was only thirty-nine years old, the mother of two young children and I had a stage two cancer. The doctors in charge wanted to do everything they could to keep me alive....and they did. I debated with them the necessity of each and every treatment, to their exasperation at times. I thought long and hard about my options and in hindsight I am glad I did what I did. It wasn't easy.

Happy to be in Maui with the family

Our medical system can be quite swift and effective when it wants to be. Though my diagnosis took too long because not one professional that I saw thought it was cancer, once it was found out to be so, everyone jumped into action. It was quite a ride from my surgery in July to the last radiation treatment in December, and with my doctors blessings I was on a plane to Maui for Christmas with my family about ten days after that last treatment. The trip had been planned for almost a year and when I asked the doctors at the start of my treatment if I could still go they did what they could to make it possible. I did my part by staying as healthy as I could throughout treatment. No small task.

Then along comes October, 1997. Breast Cancer Awareness Month, my first in my post-cancer world.  The papers and magazines were full of articles about women being diagnosed and treated. Some successfully, others not so much. Tales of recurrences of breast cancers, articles on the different kinds of breast cancers, statistics on cure rates and mortality rates and much, much talk about how common the disease was, what your chances of having it were and getting it again. It was overwhelming. I felt like I had post-traumatic stress syndrome. Pictures of women wearing scarves and wigs to cover their bald heads were everywhere. Pictures of mourning family members, too. The stores were full of pink -- pink bracelets and pins, pink labels on food and cosmetics...pink, pink, pink. The colour pink really has no connection to breast cancer in my mind, believe me, cancer is not pretty and soft and girly in any way. But no matter, I felt like I was drowning in a pink wave of breast cancer all over again.

Me in my headscarf on
 Labour Day

I understand that the painful stories of dying mothers, sisters and wives are meant to stir people to open their wallets and donate to the cause. And that cause has been very successful, breast cancer fund raising is a big business now.  I tried to write a letter to the paper to articulate what it felt like to be someone who had just been through the experience and to see it splashed about the paper every week for a month but I couldn't explain it properly and didn't want to insult all the women and their families working through their own situations.

The first few years after my treatment for cancer I would find myself getting anxious and emotional in June. When it happened the first time I didn't know why, but I soon realized that my unconscious was reliving the whole episode. I had lost my hair on the Labour Day weekend so that became an emotional touchstone as did various reminders throughout the fall.  As the years past and I continued to stay healthy those anxieties faded, the fear of recurrence dimming with every calendar change.

So now there is just October, the Pink month, and its tales of triumphs and sorrows. My heart goes out to each and every woman who gets a breast cancer diagnosis and to the people that surround her. I was fortunate to have such wonderful family and friends to help me through the experience and not every one has that. Others feel the need to go through it alone, telling only those who absolutely need to know. I don't understand that but I respect it.

We threw a party to thank everyone
who had helped me through it.

I think the huge success of the Pink campaign has allowed the media to tone down the coverage somewhat these days. I don't feel as bombarded in October with stories that make me cry but maybe it's me that has changed. My experience with breast cancer is in my distant past now, no longer a thing that haunts me on a daily basis. It is never forgotten, I have scars and other health issues as reminders of that time, but it is not a topic of discussion anymore. People I have known for years don't always know of my diagnosis, it just doesn't come up and that's a wonderful thing. I don't label myself a "survivor" of cancer, I'm just someone who had it and treated it with the help of the fantastic cancer care that BC has, care which I support with monthly donations. So it is now time for me to see October in shades of orange, again. Orange for the falling leaves and the pumpkins of Halloween. I don't need pink to remind me to care.

Much love to those going through any kind of cancer treatment right now, my thoughts are with you.