Backdated post. Originally posted on my deviantART page.
I’m not doing this because my friends are doing it.
I’m not doing it because it’s “trendy and hip“.
I’m not doing it because it’s the socially accepted way to deal with these things.
I’m not doing it because I feel obliged to conform to the norm.
I’m doing it for my grandfather Herman who didn’t survive prostate cancer.
I’m doing it for my aunt Claire who didn’t survive colon cancer. In a matter of a few months, she went from a very much alive and vibrant aunt who had a job and a life, to a shriveled up and extremely aged patient confined to a bed.
I’m doing this for my aunt Shirley who didn’t survive breast cancer, despite losing her breasts, losing her hair, losing hope. In the end it led to her husband and children losing her.
I’m doing it for my aunt Carla who didn’t survive the tumour in her spine, which led to her being confined to a wheelchair because she couldn’t support her own weight. It then led to the amputation of legs because they were no longer functioning, to the removal of one of her kidneys because the cancer had spread throughout her body.
I’m doing it for my own mother who had health scares. Things growing in her abdomen which, if they weren’t detected when they were, could’ve grown into tumours.
I’m doing it for my own father who has an unknown skin condition whenever he goes out in the sun for too long.
I’m doing it for my aunt who acts like a child because she’s actually mentally retarded. I’m doing it for my grandmother who died of Alzheimers. I’m doing it for my other grandfather who died of a potpourri of diseases. For my uncles and aunts with low blood pressure, high blood pressure, diabetes, heart diseases…
I’m doing it for everyone who lives with a disease or condition they shouldn’t have to deal with, whether curable or not, treatable or not, well known enough or not…
I’m doing it because I live in a persistent fear that I have absolutely no chance of escaping any major disease or condition later on in life. The haunting thought that cancer runs in both sides of my family, in men and women.. the thought that all these run in my family…
To have you call it “trendy and hip” to support a cause.. one against something so debilitating and terrifying.. one I wouldn’t wish upon any human, not even you.
You’re pretty much comparing going pink to wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt.. because it’s “trendy”.
Trendy.
Never have I seen someone use poorer wording. Ever.
You want to use figures? Breast cancer kills 15% of sufferers compared to CFS/ME’s 10%? Let’s look at things the other way around. According to the World Health Organisation’s study of the deaths in 2002 worldwide, this having tabulated over 57 million deaths, cardiovascular diseases are the number one cause of death, adding up to 29.34% of all deaths that year.
Cancers, on the other hand, come in at 3rd or 4th with 12.49%.. of all deaths.. that year. That’s about 7 million people in 2002. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that more than the population of Finland? Hell, in two years you have the population of the Netherlands, almost. Australia has 21 million, so that’d be three years…
Imagine the equivalent of your country’s population just dying off in one year. Every year.
Now, I’m looking for your disease on that list.. but I’m not able to find it… Oh well, I’m sure it’s there, but I didn’t really see it near the top, with cancer and HIV/AIDS and heart disease and so on.
Now I don’t mean to make your condition seem “untrendy and unhip”, but I’m sure if it killed as many people as the aforementioned did, it would catch just as much attention. It seems to me anyway that people think it’s “trendy and hip” because it just seems to kill so many damn people.
I can understand your frustration, since your condition wasn’t really recognised or known before the middle of the 20th century, while cancer’s been known since the times of Hippocrates. I can understand the frustration that scientists can’t even come up with a decent classification of what is and isn’t your condition.
But under no circumstances, no matter how you word it, do you have the right to mock the fight against something that kills millions of people worldwide. It’s intolerable behaviour for anyone.. anyone. Not even from someone with AIDS, not from someone with your condition, not from someone with fucking foot fungus.
If you want to call fighting cancer “trendy”, well I’m sorry `diamondie…
I guess I’m a fucking trendwhore.
