It was
one year ago yesterday that my radiation oncologist told me I am “cancer-free,”
as far as anyone knows. I only know this because it turns out my daughter,
Julia, started keeping a diary the day I was diagnosed. She has, so far, filled
up a paper diary and part of a hard drive with it. I did not know that. It goes
to show you that cancer affects everyone, not just the patient. Anyhow, she
looked it up and congratulated me on my anniversary.
Different people celebrate their
cancer survivorship on the anniversaries of different milestones. I think my
big celebration will always be March 9, the day I was diagnosed. That day is
etched in my mind as the day everything changed. On November 1, not much
happened except I had finished radiation, on schedule, and had a quick meeting
with the oncologist. I remember it more from being told I would never be
“cured,” than from being told I was already “cancer-free.” I suspect Julia
prefers the Nov. 1 date because she is at heart an optimist and she would
rather celebrate a more-upbeat occasion.
The
start of November also means I need to announce the winner of my month-long
contest on Facebook in which I asked people to submit photos of the most
offensive pink ribbons they could locate during Pinktober. There were some
doozies! It was hard to choose the winners. Some pink ribbons were more ugly, some
were more obviously not going to raise any money for actual cancer-relief
purposes, and some were on products more likely to cause cancer than to cure
it. So I just settled on what I found personally the nastiest.
I
disqualified a couple of photos people sent me, because while they were pink
and awful, I could not be sure the items depicted were real. Steve sent me a
photo of a pink tank he found online. It was awful, but possibly Photoshopped.
My son, Matt, also located an image of some cigarettes with pink ribbons on
them, but again, I think someone created them just for the irony of it. Steve
also found a photo of a truly offensive (but pink) AK-47, but instead of pink
ribbons it had Hello Kitty logos. Not good enough!
I
disqualified two of the best entries on the grounds that they were mine, and
since I am also the contest judge, that would have been a conflict of interest.
But they were preposterous. One was the large, juicy-looking steaks Safeway was
advertising with pink ribbon stickers all over them. The other one, also at
Safeway, was Mike’s Hard (pink) Lemonade with pink ribbons all over it. My doctors tell me that alcohol and extra fat
are things that can actually cause breast cancer, so I think these pink ribbons
were particularly questionable. But I can’t win my own contest, so the winners
are:
Third place goes to my daughter, Julia, who
found a remarkably ugly car air-freshener in the shape of a lurid pink ribbon
that looked more like a condom or something. I am sure it did not raise money
for anything useful. Second place goes
to Kathy Bittinger, who found some pink Porta-pots of Awareness. And, drumroll please, first place for the
ugliest/least sensitive use of a pink ribbon goes to Kathleen Morrish, who
found a horrible urn with a pink ribbon on it. Seriously. It’s depressing
enough to have cancer, without having to imagine your bodily remains spending
eternity in something like that! (Note to friends and family: When I die, scatter my ashes on a mountain in
Montana. Do not keep them on the mantle in an ugly urn with a pink ribbon on
it!)
By the way, Kathleen’s prize is a
coyote-ugly Tape Dispenser of Awareness. I believe 50 cents of the purchase
price actually goes to a bonafide cancer charity, so it’s not entirely pointless,
and if your tape needs dispensing, hey, look no further. But boy, it is ugly.
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