Once again Facebook games about breast cancer are making the rounds now that it is October. I posted this last year and got some flack from people who thought anything that “raised awareness” about breast cancer was good and couldn’t understand why I am critical of these messages.
My point is that this isn’t awareness.
There probably isn’t anyone on Facebook who doesn’t know that breast cancer exists. But there certainly is a lot of myth-busting to be done. This is not how to do it. Topics that do need attention include male breast cancer, the underfunding of metastatic research (30% of people with breast cancer will eventually have metastases yet less than 5% of breast cancer funding overall goes to metastatic research), the fact that for many breast cancers 5 years in remission does not mean you’re free from risk of recurrence, not all breast cancer presents with a lump (inflammatory breast cancer)… the list goes on and on.
There’s a lot of work to be done educating. Education is awareness, these Facebook posts are not.
A friend asked me, “What can I do to help? I can’t donate money to your research fund but would like some ideas on things I could do instead.” What a great question. Rather than post these messages on your Facebook page here are a few easy ideas:
1. Make sure you are properly vaccinated from vaccine-preventable illnesses. This includes your family (kids and your parents if applicable), friends, and anyone else you can get involved (nag). Boosters like those for pertussis are very important. Get your annual flu shot. People over the age of 65 and some others at high risk should also talk to doctors about the pneumonia vaccine.
2. If eligible, donate blood and platelets. These products are needed by cancer patients constantly.
3. If eligible, get tested to be a bone marrow donor. Go to BeTheMatch.com to see the requirements. The initial registry just requires a cheek swab. It’s easy as can be.
4. Read blogs/follow tweets by people living with cancer. I think understanding the day to day lives of those of us living with it is a great way to truly become more aware. It’s one of the reasons I spend so much time writing here. I try to bring you the science, the experience, the thoughts of a mother trying to cope with raising a family and managing an terminal diagnosis.
Now on to the Facebook posts… here is a slightly modified version of the post from last year. You can go back to the original if you want to see comments made then.
……………………………
I don’t usually rant, but something has me steaming. Today the following exact message appeared in my Facebook inbox:
So here is the time of year again when we try to raise awareness for breast cancer through a game. It’s very easy and I would like all of you to participate. Two years ago we had to write the color of our underwear on our wall. Men wondered for days at what was going on with random colors on our walls. This year we make references to your love life status. Do not answer to this message just post the corresponding word on your wall AND send this message privately to all the girls in your contact list!!!!!! BLUEBERRY = single; PINEAPPLE = it’s complicated; RASPBERRY = I can’t / don’t want to commit; APPLE= engaged; CHERRY= in a relationship; BANANA=married; AVOCADO= I’m the better half; STRAWBERRY= can’t find Mr. Right; LEMON = want to be single RAISIN = want to get married to my partner. Last time the underwear game was mentioned on tv, let’s see if we get there with this one !!!!!Copy and paste this message into a new one and send to all your girly friends and update your status with your answer. DO NOT RESPOND TO THIS CONVO, just leave and participate.One version I received yesterday says this:
Hello Ladies, Without replying to this message, put a heart on your wall; no comment, just a heart. Next, post a heart on the wall of the person who sent you this message. Then send this message to your women friends, only women. If anyone asks you why you have so many hearts on your wall, don’t tell them. This is only for women, because this is breast cancer research week. One small act of solidarity between women. PS to type a heart, first type < then 3 It will turn into a heart as soon as you post.………………………
I’m going to keep my reaction short. I’m hoping writing something down like this will allow people who are as infuriated as I am with these silly requests to have something to react with.
First, I give you permission to ignore this crap. Better yet, write back to the people who have shared it. Let’s do some real awareness here.
The above instructions are not awareness. This is offensive. Breast cancer is not a joke, awareness does not come from sharing the color of your underwear or your marital status (the whole “tee-hee, wink-wink” attitude adds to my disgust). Even if it ended up on TV, that still would not be educating people about breast cancer they didn’t know before. All it does is show the world that lots of people are willing to post silly things as their status updates.
Let’s do a piece of education right here. The status update says “only send this to your girly friends.” Men get breast cancer too. Men are also the husbands, fathers, sons, brothers, and some of the friends, coworkers, nurses, and doctors who care for and are left grieving for people (men and women) who die of breast cancer. We should not exclude them from ANY discussion of cancer.
Just because it says it’s about breast cancer awareness doesn’t mean you have to agree. Go ahead. Ignore it. Or write back and tell them why you don’t want to be included in these things anymore. Another blogger, Susan Niebur, wrote about her take here. She was an astrophysicist, by the way. She died of metastatic breast cancer.
Anyone who has breast cancer and uses your FB status update as an indicator of whether you support their cause is not very enlightened. When I rank “how to help those of us with cancer,” sharing one of these paragraphs as a status update is the lowest possible method of showing support. There are endless ways to do that. I think it actually is the opposite; sharing these status updates makes people feel they are doing something real for breast cancer causes when they aren’t.
I’ve also had it with the I’ll bet most of my friends won’t share this post attempt to guilt me in to sharing something like “share this if you think domestic abuse is awful.” “Share this if you think autistic kids are special.” Well yes, actually, I believe both of those things. And just because I didn’t share them as my status update doesn’t mean I do NOT agree with the statements.
Education underlies awareness. To even call something a game and honestly believe it’s doing anything to help any aspect of this disease is delusional.
And why would awareness be correlated with something being done secretly?
I think that those of us who have had breast cancer have an obligation to speak out if we disagree with these posts. People look to us to see how we react. If we not only read these updates but share them, it does constitute endorsement. It says we agree. It says it’s okay to think of breast cancer awareness this way.
I say: count me out of these Facebook games.
I have stage 4 breast cancer and it is no game to me.
Link to Twitter