I need to get this off my chest
At the risk of sounding like a boob, National Breast Cancer Awareness Month really gets under my skin.
I hope they find a cure for breast cancer soon because it’s not even halfway through the month of October yet and I am already sick of seeing grown football players parading up and down the field in pink. A whole month of this, and it’s an absolute travesty.
Why does breast cancer get its own month? Would somebody in the audience mind telling me when Liver Cancer Awareness Month is?
Say, what are your plans for Lower Intestine Cancer Awareness Day this year? I was thinking about having a round of burgers down at the bar.
Who isn’t aware of breast cancer? Do we really need the “awareness” part in there? The pink is just predictably annoying, but the awareness part is just plain redundant.
Do you honestly expect me to believe there is a guy out there who isn’t aware of cancer’s existence?
Or better yet, breasts?
Of course not, that’s absurd.
Do not misconstrue my opinion or consider me a chauvinistic pig. I hate everything about breast cancer.
I hate the cancer part. I hate the breast part.
Well on second thought, the breast part isn’t so bad, but I definitely hate the cancer part. I hate cancer more than Hitler.
And yet, the notion of Hitler being diagnosed with cancer oddly amuses me.
Somewhere along the line breast cancer became the metaphorical polar bear of the cancer community. Zealot animal activists want to save polar bears and other like-minded cute and cuddly endangered species, but nobody cares about the near-extinct blobfish.
Nobody gives a rip about the blobfish because they are ugly, unsightly and resemble an actual breast — with a face.
No, my real problem with this whole pink predicament is why it’s apparently so selective. As if society has ruled to pay attention to this one type of cancer above all others.
It sends a sour message to other types of cancer survivors and victims. Who deemed breast cancer as the King of the Cancers?
How do you think that makes other people feel who have another type of cancer — or don’t even have breasts at all?
Take my brand-new and now cancer-free wife, Christine. She had ovarian cancer when we first met each other. We would be sitting on the couch watching football in October and I would get mad at her.
“You have the wrong kind of cancer, kiddo!” I would nag insistently. “You should have been diagnosed with breast cancer, you know? That way it would appear that society cares about you.”
“I know, I know,” Christine would pout. “I feel totally fleeced.”
Yup, I have personally been affected by cancer so I can afford to treat this subject matter in a humorous light. Plus, now you probably feel obligated to sympathize with me.
Ovarian cancer doesn’t have its own month or day, at least in an officially recognized or celebrated capacity, unless Never-tober is an actual month.
Nor does ovarian cancer have its own obnoxious color. (For the record I would suggest brilliant lavender.)
From what I pretend to know about the female anatomy the ovaries are more important in the overall scheme of things than breasts. Breasts are nice, provide much-needed nutrition to newborn babies and can sometimes earn a gal a set of plastic beads, but ovaries?
Forget about it.
Ovaries have been creating civilization since the dawn of, well, civilization. But there shouldn’t be a National Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month anymore than there should be a National Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
What it should be called, however, is something much simpler. I would start with Cancer Awareness Month and leave it at that.
Nothing about cancer should feel like a high school popularity contest.
