Pink Is Not a Cure! by Nancy Stordahl

I am so pleased to have Nancy Stordahl here today. Because my mother had breast cancer and because virtually all of our lives are touched by it in one way or another, I tend to think the more we know about it, the better. I hope you'll not only read this post, but follow Nancy's blog and check out her books as well. My apologies for the fonts being kind of weird; Blogger and I are fighting again, and it always wins. Thanks for reading. Have a good week. Be nice to somebody. - Liz

It’s October again, and you know what that means—pink and pink ribbons start popping up everywhere. Yep. Breast Cancer Awareness Month (BCAM) is upon us again, or as some refer to it—and not in an endearing sort of way—Pinktober.

Do you ever wonder why some people can’t seem to get enough of pink and pink ribbon paraphernalia and others cringe at all things pink during Breast Cancer Awareness Month?

Do you ever feel confused by the controversy and wonder if you’re supposed to pick a side?

All this “pinking” is a good thing, you might be thinking. The more pink and the more pink ribbons the better, right? 

Doesn’t all this pinking mean more awareness? 

Isn’t any kind of awareness a good thing?

Maybe. But maybe not.

To be clear, there is nothing wrong with the color pink. Pink is just a color. It’s actually one of my favorites, just not so much during October. There is nothing wrong with ribbons; they’re just ribbons. Pink ribbons are okay too—until they’re not.

Somewhere along the line, pink ribbons morphed into a successful marketing tool. In fact, pink ribbons turned into a marketing goldmine used to increase not only profits but a company’s image as well. Talk about bang for your buck—I mean ribbon.

Just when you think you’ve seen it all, another gizmo, gadget, or product adorned in pink comes down the pike. You realize you were wrong and that there’s even more where that came from.

If you can eat it, drink it, play with it, wear it, hammer with it, bake with it, travel in it, or even put your trash in it; there’s probably a pink version of whatever it is available and waiting for your purchase at one of your friendly local retailers.

Somehow, breast cancer and shopping became intertwined, or maybe more aptly put, tangled up.

I’ve been asking the same question for years now: Why is breast cancer the shopping disease anyway?

We aren’t shopping to cure prostate cancer, heart disease, or diabetes, are we?

So, again, why is breast cancer the shopping disease?

I don’t have the definitive answer, but I think it might have something to do with a certain part of the female anatomy by which it is easy to grab attention, and then, access to people’s wallets. 

Which leads us to the next problem some, including me, have with much of the pink nonsense—sexualization and trivialization of a still too often deadly disease.  

Call me a wet blanket (I’ve been called worse), but I don’t find it amusing when I see photos of dogs wearing balloon breasts, bras strung across yards, or rocks painted to look like breasts. And don’t get me started on saving the tatas, boozing it up for boobs, grabbing a feel, saving ‘em all - big and small, and the list goes on and on. 

Nothing about breast cancer is pink, pretty, or party-like. Period.

Some say, well, you have to lighten things up to get people’s attention. To that, I say, uh-uh, no you don’t, and I also ask, why should we?

People deserve better. And, they deserve complete, honest messaging.

Breast cancer remains a still too often deadly disease. This year roughly 42,000 women AND men are expected to die from metastatic breast cancer. It might surprise you to hear that this is a number that hasn’t changed much over the last decade+. 

Metastatic breast cancer has, in fact, too often been swept under the rug during all the pink hoopla of BCAM and not talked about much, if at all. Think about it. How many times have you heard about stage 4 breast cancer during BCAM? Not that many, right? No, usually, the focus is on pink fluff. 

Thankfully, this is changing, but ever so slowly. 

We must ask, what took so long?

And that, Readers, brings us to the third problem with all this pinking—the messaging during BCAM has been too simplified as well. Many people think breast cancer isn’t so bad these days. I kid you not, it’s still often referred to as the “good cancer.”

Believe me, even if you’re “lucky” and never experience metastasis, breast cancer is still a life-altering disease. It is not an over and done deal. If only…

Another message that has, for the most part, failed to get out is that men can, and sometimes do, get breast cancer too. How do you think men with breast cancer feel during Pinktober? I’d dare to say, many feel left out.

So, to sum things up, the three problems, as I see it anyway, with Pinktober that have continued for decades now are: marketing misuse and/or misrepresentation, trivialization and sexualization, and incomplete messaging.

What can YOU do to make a difference?

We can’t just throw our hands up and think, what’s the use, or what can I do?

Each of us can make a difference. YOU can make a difference.

But how? 

Here are a few ideas:

1. First of all, get informed about breast cancer reality. Learn the facts, and talk about metastatic disease too. After all, awareness without mets awareness isn’t awareness at all.

2. Share what you learn whenever the opportunity arises. Start a conversation.

3. Speak up when something looks phony, offensive, or gimmicky.

4. Before you buy something pink or with pink ribbons, ask these questions: (Source Breast Cancer Action:)

• Does any money from this purchase go to support breast cancer programs? How much?

• What organization will get the money? What will they do with the funds, and how do these programs turn the tide of the breast cancer epidemic?

• Is there a “cap” on the amount the company will donate? Has this maximum donation already been met? Can you tell?

• Does this purchase put you or someone you love at risk for exposure to toxins linked to breast cancer? (pinkwashing)

5. Perhaps one of the easiest things to do is to give a donation to your favorite breast cancer charity—hopefully, one dedicated to research and a focus on metastatic disease. Doing this is a win-win for everyone, well, except maybe for those businesses trying to rake in extra cash without doing much, if anything, in return that actually makes a difference.

All this is not to say, don’t buy something with a pink ribbon on it, but rather, don’t buy something just because it has one. Big difference. And buy it after you’ve asked the above questions, too, of course.

After all, pink is not a cure. 

A cure, or at least better, less harsh treatments and better survival odds for those with metastatic disease, will only come through research—not ribbons.

I’ll close with a favorite advocacy quote from the late Barbara Brenner:

“If breast cancer could be cured by shopping, it would be cured by now.”

Amen to that.

Nancy Stordahl is a former educator. She’s been writing candidly about breast cancer, pink ribbon shenanigans, hereditary cancer, loss and grief, pets, and family for over a decade on her popular blog NancysPoint.com. Stop by and browse around.

Nancy is the author of the new book, Emerging: Stories from the Other Side of a Cancer Diagnosis, Loss, and a Pandemic. Find it on Amazon and other online booksellers.

Her other books are: Getting Past the Fear: A Guide to Help You Mentally Prepare for Chemotherapy and Cancer Was Not a Gift & It Didn’t Make Me a Better Person. Both are available on Amazon.

Follow Nancy’s Point on Facebook, X, Instagram, and TikTok.

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Once again, refusing to jump onto the “everything happens for a reason" bandwagon, Nancy Stordahl tackles tough topics like cancer, loss, and the COVID-19 pandemic with unflinching honesty while dismantling the back to normal myth. As readers of "Nancy's Point" and her memoir, Cancer Was Not a Gift & It Didn't Make Me a Better Person, have come to expect, she crafts a poignant, personal narrative while weaving in validation, comfort, and encouragement to readers who are coping with their own challenges, whatever those might be.

Never one to sugarcoat the breast cancer experience, Stordahl examines words such as mastectomy and lumpectomy, calling them out as inadequate and minimizing. She shares candidly about reconstruction decisions and why she opted for DIEP flap surgery at ten years post diagnosis, highlighting the on-going experience that breast cancer is. She sheds light on judging that still goes on regarding choices women make and why survivor guilt is so common in Cancer Land.

Stordahl asks hard questions that many grapple with such as: Why do we avoid talking about death and grief, and why do we hesitate to even use the "D" words? What does it feel like to become parentless? Why does saying goodbye to our beloved pets hurt so much? And, why are we so often expected to just move on from hard things?

Emerging also touches on the universal themes of aging, making tough decisions, resiliency, and self-acceptance. Advice offered is realistic, straight-forward, and helpful. Stordahl reminds us we needn't pressure ourselves to emerge from any life challenge as new and improved versions of our former selves. Instead, she shines light on a kinder, gentler path to recovery and self-acceptance.

Emerging is a refreshing, encouraging read for anyone who has struggled, or is struggling, with one of life's challenges - a book you'll want to keep handy to read again and again.

Hey, Mom...

 I wrote this in 2010. I'm posting it here because it's October and Breast Cancer Awareness is important. Thanks for reading

My mother died in September of 1982. She raised five children to adulthood and buried a little girl at three, something she never got over. It took having children of my own to realize that no one ever does. She was a good housekeeper, made the best cookies and homemade bread imaginable, and had a way with potato soup. Although she worked at the instrument factory in Elkhart until she married Dad, she didn’t work outside the home again until we were grown and gone, and then she was in demand as a caregiver.

Ours was not the kind of mother-daughter relationship you normally read about. We disappointed each other often. We argued a lot. I never seemed to please her, so after while, I stopped trying. I was in the midst of being a wife and a mother and working a job and in the process of doing that, I was a terrible daughter. Even all these many years later, it’s hard to type that. Hard to admit it.

It wasn’t that we never had peace. We did. We laughed together sometimes. When she was ill, I took her for treatments once in a while, though not often enough, and stopped for lunch at places she liked. The last words I ever said to her that I was sure she heard were that I loved her and would see her later. She said, “Don’t go. It’s going to be so long,” and those words haunt me still. Because even though she asked me to stay, I didn’t.

My first book was published in 1999 and I was so excited I could hardly stand it, but I sat and held the book and cried because she hadn’t lived to see it. “I wish she knew,” I said to my husband, and Duane said, “She does.” I hope he was right. My faith says he was, but my inner voice just reminds me that I wasn’t a good daughter.

I was in my early 30s when Mom died. When my kids approached that age, I went into a private panic because what if history repeated itself? I wasn’t nearly ready to leave them. I still had things to tell them, things to show them, advice to offer that they might not want but would listen to cheerfully before disregarding.

You don’t stop missing your mother with the passage of time. The gap in your life that was left by her leaving doesn’t fill up with other things. It loses its sharp edges, but it’s still there.

Why do I suddenly feel compelled to write about my mom, something I’ve never done a lot of? Her birthday was in April, Mother’s Day in May, the anniversary of her passing a month ago yesterday, so why now?

Because October is Breast Cancer Awareness month.

It’s time to make an appointment for your mammogram if you haven’t already had one. If you can’t afford it, call your doctor’s office. Yes, I know. A federal medical panel determined you don’t really need a mammogram yet, and even if you’re already getting them, they said you don’t need to do it as often.

I don’t care. I don’t care what they say. Get one anyway. I was still in my 30s when I had a biopsy. Thankfully, it was benign, but the lump showed up in the mammogram I had, not because I found it on my own.

The U. S. Postal Service sells Breast Cancer Research stamps. They’re pretty stamps, they’re a reminder to everyone who notices one on an envelope, and they help a slew of people. At least in October, you might buy a sheet. You could stop in at the post office on the way to your mammogram.

If you know someone who’s doing a Breast Cancer Walk, support them. Pledge money, pledge time, make the walk yourself if you have the time, health, and resources.

Breast cancer isn’t just the disease of the month. Even though research and improved drugs have made its statistics somewhat less terrifying, it still manages to reach every family you know.

Yes, October is Breast Cancer Awareness month, but once it’s touched your family, you’re aware of it forever. Mom may have died in 1982, but she was ill for a long time before that. Although there were good times in the last seven years of her life, there were horrific ones, too. Even if you were a bad daughter, even if you’re an incurable optimist, when you remember those horrific times and how someone you loved suffered, it twists you up with a grief you can’t get enough mammograms or buy enough stamps or walk far enough to diminish.

So that’s why I wrote about my mom. To help keep you aware. Maybe to talk you into making that appointment or that donation. And to tell her I’m sorry I wasn’t a better daughter. If I had it to do over again, I would be.

But sometimes there aren’t any do-overs. I guess I wanted to remind you of that, too.

Have a good week. Make that appointment.

Till next time.