Sometimes Awareness Sucks

By Megan

As National Breast Cancer Awareness Month gets under way with renewed vigor — "celebrating 25 years of awareness" — I'm struck by a certain irony. Awareness of your risk may be desirable before you're diagnosed, but after you've been diagnosed, awareness kind of sucks.

Some women find that their experience with breast cancer heightens their appreciation of every aspect of their lives. But I'd do just about anything to rid myself of the awareness that lingers five years after I completed treatment: the anxiety that the ordinary aches and pains I'm experiencing could be symptoms of metastases, and the concern that my cancer history ups my daughter's risk for getting it.

I know my friends hate it when I bring up breast cancer. I can read their thoughts. They think I should just get over it and move on. And to a certain extent, I am over it, and I have moved on.

Recently I read an interview in Time magazine with Howard Lutnick, the CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, which lost 658 employees when terrorists struck the World Trade Center in 2001. That tragedy was, of course, much more devastating than my bout with breast cancer. But his words struck a chord with me. He said, "People say, 'Are you going to move on?' And the answer is, We move forward, but it stays with us."

That's what's happening with me, I think. I move forward, but it stays with me.

Posted September 30, 2011.

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Thank you, Megan. I don't understand "friends" who ask about/expect a certain function from us. I believe that no one can fully understand it unless they've been there. I find that disheartening. Surely, human beings can feel compassion towards another, without having gone thru the same experience. Can't they? Well, more often than not, I find that people are just too self-involved, they cannot find the compassion to give. This is most disappointing especially when women are this way. (Sympathetic men are a complete fluke!) But from my fellow "sisters", I expected more. If your friends "hate it" when you bring up breast cancer, I'm afraid they are not really your friends. I've "removed" several "friends" from my circle. It hurts me too much to experience their lack of compassion. Best to you!

— Nanci

OMG, PINKTOBER......I know...it is all over!! Last week I layed down in my bed to watch the Jets game....and they were all wearing PINK!! Pink cleats, pink gloves....pink skull caps. I know it is wonderful to help make people aware and go for check-ups, but sometimes you just want to not think about it. It will always stay with us, and I am blessed to have friends and family who do not walk on egg shells around me. We all know it's their, but we
don't let it overpower my life.

— Stella

I loathe the month of October. The pinkness everywhere is ridiculous. However, you bring up a good point about people not understanding about moving on. We move on but not (I've concentrated my efforts in advoacy of various sorts). Having an initial diagnosis of breast cancer whether it is invasive or DCIS, and having it treated is not the same as having a fracture that laid you up for weeks or months. I had a compound fracture to my right leg back in 1985 and had a cast up to my thigh. I don't think about that happening again. But even though I finished my initial treatment over 10 years ago, it's still there, it will always be there, and it will be continue to be there until I die of something else. I don't let it overpower my life at all, but it has defined who I am now in ways I never imagined before my diagnosis.

— Madeleine Tress

Megan

Megan is a volunteer on SHARE's Breast Cancer Hotline.