It’s okay to write about boobs. It really is. Fun bags. Tatas. Maracas. Melons. Face pillows. Whatever you choose to call them is perfectly acceptable to me. Behold! It’s October, officially making it National Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
However, my question to you is this: Why wait a whole year to promote breast health or give a big push for women to give themselves self-exams? Cancer does not wait til October every year to rear its ugly head…so, why should you only check then?
My grandmother was, for lack of better poetic wording, the joy of my life and the backbone of my existence as a child. Strong, bold, stubborn, hard-working, dedicated, selfless, beautiful and full of life. That’s the main one…right there…full of life. She embodied everything life should be. Lived to the fullest, unapologetic…she was the definition of both loving and being in love. Therefore, to see her life ending before my eyes in a little over a year after being diagnosed with breast cancer will forever be one of the most painful things I’ve endured. Yes, I. I’m selfish. I want to talk about how her pain and suffering affected me. Because, in a way, I hold a small grudge against her. She knew she had cancer. For 12 years prior to her death she knew she had a bump in her breast she should’ve taken care of…but she never told anyone. By the time the symptoms got out of hand, the small lump in her breast had now spread to her other breast, her neck and lodged to the bottom of her brain. Was she afraid of going to the doctor? Why didn’t she tell us? Did she not notice it getting bigger every year?
Did she know what it did to us to see the matriarch of a family line…of our little tribe…struggle with the chemo? Did she realize what it was like for those who needed her and looked up to her to see her first, become unable to hold food down? Then her speech slow? Then spend most of her days in a bed? How was I supposed to understand that the same woman who had taught me to cook and fed us all daily, flawlessly making her way through a kitchen, was now using a walker and barely keeping her balance against the counter as she struggled to fry a piece of fish for me in an effort to prove to us (or herself) that she could still do things? How could I process in my goofy pre-teen head, that this human that had taught me most of what I needed to know about life and how to live it…was now laying in a bed in her room…trapped in her own body? She lost all motor skills, all ability to speak and her feeding tube was the only thing keeping her relatively healthy. She’d lay there, feeling pain or maybe wanting to talk, and all I could see was her staring up at us with a few tears in her eyes. Prisoner in her body. Prisoner to cancer. That thing in her breast was as old as I was…and it had been small in the beginning. Maybe a small surgery and a short round of chemo would’ve helped? Maybe not? But she ignored it.
The rest of the details, all the way to the end, are irrelevant. It was the death that can never be forgotten. It was the person that can never be replaced or let go of. If anything, it showed me we’re all breakable, fragile. So, I ask this of you…
You all probably have family members who are selfish, like me. People that will never forgive you for not doing the best you can to keep yourself healthy in order to share a full, happy life with them. If you’re selfish and don’t feel like doing it for you…do it for them.
Squish your boobs! Squish their boobs! Squish your girlfriend’s boobs! Squish everyone’s boobs! If you’re a guy? Squish your boobs too! (Yes, there’s breast cancer in males, too.) The point is don’t be afraid. Save your life…save A life. All year long, squish because you love.
If you’re already battling cancer, stay a survivor. We are all rooting for you. Squish yourself twice for good measure.
Here’s links to great sites about boobies (not porn) and breast cancer boob help!
http://www.thebreastcancersite.com/
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