I'd promised a Friday List. Then I'd told someone I was going to bed. I also told my roommate I might not even blog tonight. Then I read something and all of this was shot to hell.
There is some new Facebook thing going around for Breast Cancer Awareness. It's one of those "be mysterious and don't say why you made the obscure post" things. The first one, which was the one that everyone remembers and the universe reported about, had to do with women posting their bra color.
The second one was about women posting where they put their purse without reference to it being a purse. If you left your purse on your desk, you would post "I like it on the desk." If you drop your purse on your bed, you'd post "I like it on the bed." As you will notice, there is a nice level of sexual innuendo to this. I didn't participate in this though mine would have been awesomely funny.
"I don't care where it is, I just like to be able to find it quickly when I need it."
Another one of the games was about shoe size. You post your shoe size, without context, in inches. "Six inches." "Ten inches." Again, there is that sexual nod. Anything directly to do with boobs? No, but yet, the game continues.
Every year, people bitch about this. "What does the blahblah had to do with breast cancer awareness?" "This is stupid!" "I asked ALL THE BREAST CANCER PEOPLE and they said this was stupid and offensive." Or, you know, something along those lines. And for some reason, people can't just be mildly or quietly annoyed by this concept. They have to rage about it.
I've made this statement before, but I think it should be repeated.
While the Bra Game and whatever else games they come up with have nothing directly to do with breast cancer, while they raise no money nor actively give out any information, they are important to the cause. The games given people a way to allow the idea of breast cancer to enter their minds without it being full of horror stories.
The reality of breast cancer, which touches almost all of our lives, is very devastating and emotional. Both of my grandmothers died due to breast-cancer related issues. Many others have lost family members as well. We see images of women with parts of their bodies removed, hairless, pale, sickly, and scared. We see images of scared covered torsos where breasts used to be. We see graves.
Preventing breast cancer is invasive. Home exams involve people talking to us about our breasts, which I'm comfortable with and so are many of the women I hang with, but that isn't the way for most women. Mammograms are even more invasive, sometimes painful. And, again, scary.
So, you know, if we can find a way to open up the dialogue about breast cancer that starts with a simple game, this isn't a bad thing. If we can get people to show solidarity through playing this game, again, that isn't a bad thing. If we're just OH SO SERIOUS and OH SO GRAVE about an issue, even a serious and grave issue, people are going to be more likely to block it out of their minds and just ignore it.
"Oh come ON, Blackhaired Barbie," you say, as you roll your eyes at me. "How does knowing what Derpina's bra color is help you to fight cancer?"
On the surface, it doesn't.
However . . .
So Derpina posts that her bra is blue. Or that she "likes it on the kitchen counter." I like her comment and in a private chat send a message to her that it was nice for her to post the things. So she posts back and tells me that breast cancer is a very important issue for her because her sister has it. I post back and tell her about my own experiences with breast cancer, how it has touched so many women in my family.
The dialogue continues as she shares her worries about what her sister is going through. She asks me if anyone I knew had a mastectomy. I tell her about my grandmother's and how while she was sensitive about it, as a child her never knew her in another context, I just accepted it as part of her and saw it as a mark of survival and courage and never as something disfiguring or scary.
So then Derpina passes this information along to her sister, who is in the process of deciding if she can emotionally handle the reality of a mastectomy. My story adds to the knowledge she had . . . which is. . . . wait for it . . . a higher level of awareness. About the scientific facts of the disease? No. About the complications of a certain procedure? No.
It adds to her knowledge of the Story of the Disease. Illness isn't just about the hard cold facts. Illness is something real that happens to all of us. Some of us will be the ones who are ill. Others will be the ones who have to helplessly watch as our loved ones are dealing with their illness.
Being sick isn't an abstract concept from a book or a pamphlet. Being sick, for many people, is a large factor in their every day lives. It's remembering to take meds. It's remembering doctor's appointments. It's the stress of wondering how long you will be in a waiting room. It's the frustration of being talked down to. It's the horror of knowing how close you are to death. It's the grim moment when you have to make very difficult and often devastating decisions.
The Facebook games don't cure anything. They don't give money to the causes. They don't explain the right way to look for lumps in your boobies.
But they open a door. They give people the chance to share their stories about the disease. They give people a chance to share their wisdom from handling certain aspects of the disease. They allow people to find a way to express their fears, their sadness, and even their anger.
When my grandmother was a girl, people didn't talk about sickness. They certainly didn't talk about things that could go wrong with "the female parts." When my grandmother found the lump in her breast, no one told her to look for it. The fact that she found it was a fluke. When she was told her breast would be taken, there were no support groups for her and no one to talk to her about alternatives. She made the hard decisions all on her own. That's commendable, but I wish it wasn't the case. I wish she would have had people to talk to.
When my aunt got breast cancer last year, many many women who had survived called to talk to her about it. They offered her details of their surgeries, told her what to expect afterwards, discussed the merits of alternatives. She was armed with a lot more than just what her doctor told her.
Did any of these women play that Facebook game? Possibly not. However, I bet some of them found out about her being ill because their daughters or granddaughters DID play the games and knew how important it was to tell the stories. And that, oh my brothers and sisters, is a damned wonderful thing.
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