It was mentioned to me that I could have possibly come off as offensive in my last post, referring to breast cancer research fundraiser items as "pink junk". And suddenly I've become hyper-aware of this "merchandise" - I'll drive through town and see signs outside of shops saying their "breast cancer jewelry is 20% off" and I can usually count at least 5 people a day, if not more, wearing shirts that have pink ribbons on them. So, yeah, with that post boasting over 200 readers (yikes when did this blog become so popular?), I guess it's possible I could have offended somebody.
So I'll just take this moment to apologize to any of you that I may have offended. I honestly didn't intend for anything I said to be taken that way.
I just don't want to see any of you keep pouring your money into this billion-dollar-a-year industry that doesn't seem to be making any headway with "finding a cure". I'm sorry, it's been around since at least 1913, and we haven't gotten anywhere yet? We just keep poisoning cancer patients with chemo, time after time after time. For over 100 years. A good friend of mine's sister had breast cancer, and after beating it she did all the walks and participated in all the fundraisers and sported her pink merchandise, and suddenly it dawned on her - where is all this money going? Look at all these people doing the walks - wearing the pink - donating, donating, donating... Where is that cure, already? She stopped donating, feeling as though she finally saw the light.If you truly believe your money is going towards helping the "doctors" "find a cure" and donating towards the "research" makes you happy and feel good about yourself, then by all means do it. I do feel good intentions are worth something great in the long run, and filling your heart with the good feeling that you did your part to help out is definitely worth something too. So I'm not stopping you if this is the case.
Actually, I just found a great article written by Barbary Jacoby, a breast cancer survivor herself, who is irritated by all the "pink stuff". Here's an excerpt from it:
"Here is my suggestion. Why not take a portion of your company’s profits and make a direct contribution to the breast cancer organization of your choice. Let me know what you have done by posting signage at your venue or in your advertising. I don’t need to buy a T-shirt that says that I am a breast cancer survivor but I do need to buy T-shirts and I will buy from you because of what you are doing to help this cause. I will still watch my favorite football teams but they don’t need to run up and down the field in pink uniforms to let me know that they support breast cancer awareness. I don’t know of a single survivor who wants to wear the pink ribbon all of the time. Everyone who knows us knows that we are survivors and they don’t need to be reminded of it on a daily basis. And as a matter of fact, I don’t want to be reminded of it all the time myself nor do I want to be defined by the fact that I am a survivor. And for those who have lost the battle to breast cancer, believe me when I say that is not the reason that they want to be remembered. They want to be remembered for the loving, caring, giving and wonderful mothers, sisters, aunts, grandmothers or friends that they were."
My heart goes out to anyone who is battling any kind of cancer, and to the people who have lost loved ones to it. I know multiple people personally, have several relatives, and I can only begin to imagine not only the physical strain it puts on the body, but the emotional toll it must take too. It's an ugly thing to have to deal with. So, truly, I don't mean to offend anyone with my views on the organizations trying to raise money to put a stop to this. I hope that's really what they're doing. But I don't trust them enough to donate, and that's just my opinion. I do know I want to take matters into my own hands when it comes to my health and my family's health, and prevent this ugly illness in the ways I trust and believe in.
But I'm not telling you to stop donating, I'm just telling you to think. Here's what I do feel like I want to tell you to do though: Look out for yourself and your loved ones and prevent cancer from happening in the first place.
As some of you may have seen on my recent Facebook status, I had a great conversation with a lady that started out with her giving her sympathies about my grandma, and saying that she's got several friends who recently lost loved ones to cancer, and pancreatic cancer in particular. "What is going on? Why does this keep happening? What causes this?" She asked. It was so refreshing to hear. I hardly ever hear anyone question the cause, it's always about curing it after it's already happened. So I took the opportunity to give her my two cents. "I'll tell you my thoughts," I said. "I feel it's a mix of different causes, the two main ones being too many medications with damaging effects on our organs, blood, and cells, and the other being the kind of diet we eat, which is filled with processed junk, synthetic ingredients, and artificial additives. We should not be putting chemicals in our body, and we should be eating food that originated from the earth and not a factory." She wholeheartedly agreed with me when I told her diet soda and artificial sweeteners were probably a HUGE factor when it comes to cancer, in particular pancreatic cancer (which is the organ in charge of regulating blood sugar). We talked about vitamins, how they're full of synthetic ingredients too. I said you need to be careful which ones you take, and I proceeded to tell her to STOP taking her Women's One-A-Days, that they're just as bad for her as diet soda. I don't know if she did that or not... but it felt good to at least raise her awareness.
I guess we can't really be safe from anything in the long run. I mean, there's toxins in the very air we breathe, and in the end those toxins could cause us to develop cancer, too. But it doesn't hurt to try to do what we can to reduce our chances of getting it. What are cancer cells? Defective cells our bodies made by accident. What could make those cells get out of control? A weakened immune system, and further damaging our cells by consuming junk that is full of crap our systems don't know how to process or digest.
I know I'm repeating a lot of the same things I said in my last post. But I feel so strongly about this. And there are so many people in my life that I care about, and now I and so many of my friends have kids of our own, I just don't want to see any of you head down this road, and I don't want to lose any of you the way I lost Granny. Don't set yourselves up for it.
And again, I'm sorry if what I said about the pink junk was offensive, but it's simply how I feel. I don't want to hear people complain about not being able to afford to eat clean but then turn around and donate to cancer charities. The cure lies in your pantry, in your choices in how you care for your body and your loved ones around you. Stop waiting around for a "cure", we've been waiting for it for over 100 years, take responsibility and prevent it from happening to you in the first place.http://truth-out.org/news/item/9716-jobs-for-the-cure-does-your-donation-go-to-cancer-research-or-salaries-and-overhead ← this is a very interesting read, just saying...
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