My second "cancerversary" and its during "Pinktober"....Good Gawd, y'all..

And you guessed it, I'm gonna rant a bit. I don't wish to be unkind to my sisters and occasional brother who have suffered through breast cancer. And God Bless Susan Komen's family who have changed the face of breast cancer and awareness of the disease. But....good Gawd y'all.....I'M AWARE ALREADY, how much more aware do I have to be? Since when did cancer become a marketing opportunity?

And in the meantime....guess which cancer kills the most people every year? Lung cancer....it affects over 700,000 people A YEAR, and it kills almost 175,000 each year!! Now I know, we all tend to look at lung cancer patients with a bit of a "well...were they smokers?" eye, but it seems to me, that if we had this gigantic "everything is pink" push for lung cancer, maybe we might make some headway into getting people not to smoke.

And now we're to the second deadliest cancer. Nope..still not the pink one, its good old colorectal cancer. As you know, I have some personal experience with this one, and it's weird to have the anniversary of the day I was diagnosed land smack dab in the middle of Pinktober. It sort of makes one feel like that really uncool and unpopular kid who always sat in the back of the classroom, just hoping to get noticed someday.

And finally, we hit the pink wall....the third deadliest cancer. Again, not to take away from breast cancer survivors, my grandma, aunt, and sister all fit that category. But please, stop already. Pink on all the NFL uniforms, pink on the top of the First Interstate building in L.A., benefit walks, shirts, coffee cups, bracelets...you name it...it's got a pink ribbon on it.

I shouldn't grump. I know. I do the whole breast cancer screening thing like I'm supposed to. But I also do the whole colonoscopy screening. I was late with my second colonoscopy...but only a year late. It had only been 4 years between "you had a non cancerous polyp that we removed", to "we found something and it doesn't look good". Four years for a cancer that is supposed to take 7-10 years to grow. And mine had grown so quickly that it was all the way through the wall of the large intestine and embedded into my abdominal wall. And, more importantly, I had absolutely no sypmtoms. I felt completely fine, I was completely normal. No stomach problems at all. (Until I lost 10% of my colon and subjected the remainder to 32 days of radiation and 8 rounds of chemo...now I have issues aplenty!) I figure at the speed that tumor was growing, if I'd been just a couple more months late for my colonoscopy, I probably wouldn't be here being the cantankerous "get off my lawn you whippersnappers" old lady today.

So I'd like to take this time...during breast cancer awareness month..to beg you all to have a colonoscopy when you're supposed to. Take care of your breast health. But please, please, please, don't ignore your colon health. I know how 'icky' the prep is. I get it. And I know it's just creepy to think about where that scope is going. But hey...they got good drugs! (Heck...I'd probably beat up and old man in an alley for these drugs...)  So do it. Your gut is as important as your boobs.

And all the breast cancer awareness walkers? Thank you, you did a wonderful thing. Now, how about next year, you find the closest Undy Run too, because well,... pooper cancer survivors have learned to laugh at themselves in the most embarrassing of situations, so you'd probably have a really great time raising money for another great cause.

And not to nag:

(Hey...it's my blog and I'll rant if I want to.....rant if I want .....rant if I want to....you would rant to if it....) Well...hell. Now THAT's gonna be stuck in my head for the rest of the day......(And all you young whippersnappers...it's a song....It's My Party and I'll Cry if I Want to..  Lesley Gore sang it waaaaaaay back when....)