It is October. Again. Pink ribbons. Heart wrenching stories of the stricken. Images of courageous smiling bald headed women in pink T shirts. Companies that donate a percentage of product proceeds to research if you buy this or that shampoo, yogurt, deodorant, or spaghetti sauce. Everyone gets on board the pink boat, unified by the desire to cure cancer.   

Cancer Bitches ride a different boat. Many of us dread October. We won’t tell you that. We would seem angry ingrates for your kindness and concern, so we quietly put our heads down until it is over. We endure the media voices speaking in hushed low tones, using the lexicon of war: battle, warrior, survivor, victim, courage. We walk down streets and supermarket aisles festooned with pink ribbons. We skip article after breast cancer awareness article that highlights anti-cancer diets, anti-cancer exercise, anti-cancer vitamins, recent anti-cancer discoveries, coffee/wine/green tea/chocolate/aspirin/tumeric.  

October 1st, it seemed fitting that I’d encounter the woman who introduced me to my personal Cancer Bitch. Suddenly, there she was, getting out of her car in our local Stop and Shop. Our eyes locked and we did not speak. Zen Bitch tries not to indulge in petty social behaviors, but Cancer Bitch does. Nearly ten years later, she is still angry, just mindfully aware of it.

In the numbest of days following my diagnosis in 2002, I told a handful of friends. One of these friends told another friend, who told the deacons at his church, thinking that members of his congregation might want to reach out with support. No one asked how I might feel about spreading the news. I had not told the people at work yet, and was figuring out how I wished to do so.

One of the deacons, the woman I saw in the parking lot, stood up at Sunday service, lit a candle, and spoke to the church congregation about her grief on learning of “another woman struck down by breast cancer–my name here.” I was not there. I did not hear her words. I did not know her. She did not know me. She did not call or write to express her concern. I was Another Woman Struck Down by Breast Cancer. She was Another Good Person Outraged by Breast Cancer.

People I hardly knew approached me at the drugstore and the bank. As I checked out a library book, the face of the librarian changed when she saw my name. Her voice lowered, “I heard about you in church.” My diagnosis was less than a week old.

With cancer comes the recognition and understanding that you have precious little control in this life. The minutiae you are permitted to control, how and when you offer information, become monumentally important. I’d always thought of my life as an open book. With cancer, I discovered it wasn’t. On a dark roiling sea, I navigated my cancer experience through the gossip, pity, and fear of strangers.

One afternoon, believing I was calm, I found a telephone number for B, the candle lighter. Cancer Bitch isn’t polite, especially not in the beginning, and years later, she can still surprise me with unskilled eruptions and confrontations around this issue. When B answered, I told her my name, then waded in.

Have you had breast cancer? Did someone close to you have breast cancer?
No.
Why did you stand up in front of a hundred people and tell them about me?
Breast cancer is a horrible disease that kills hundreds of thousands of women every year.
That is true. How are you helping them?
I speak out.
For who?
For them.
I am one of them. You did not help me.

She did not understand my anger. She was not alone.  

This month of October, instead of buying a bottle of hair conditioner with a pink ribbon graphic that contains suspected carcinogens, knit a soft cotton hat and take it to the chemo floor of your local cancer center. The nurses will know what to do with it. Write a note of concern and hope to someone you’ve heard is newly diagnosed, rather than pass on the news to another semi-acquaintance. Don’t put us on a courage pedestal, because we’re so brave and you don’t know how we do it.  We don’t have a choice.  Please don’t tell us about those women who’ve died. That is not a good topic of conversation to show your support. Try not to be afraid of our cancer. We can see it.

For further information, visit http://thinkbeforeyoupink.org/

Cancer Bitches thank you.