CANCER SUCKS pink ribbons

CANCER SUCKS

that's a button slogan, used by the advocacy group Breast Cancer Action.
Some members of that group adamantly disagree with the belief that if you "...put a pink face on it...we'll all be great."


I can relate.

I've been on both sides: wearing the positive afterglow of the pink ribbon alongside the stomach-wrenching pull of cancer's suck.

For the record, I would have preferred to remain, like Switzerland,
NEUTRAL.
But since I've already crossed those borders and am preparing for LEG THREE of this race, here is the Yin & Yang of my cancer journey thus far:

Yin - 25+ rounds of daily radiation treatments ahead/Yang - 16 rounds of chemo behind me;
Yin - increased risk of blood clots/Yang - five years of Aromatase Inhibitors, daily;
Yin - monthly stomach injections that allow me to take a cancer-fighting drug/Yang - alternative hormone therapy decreasing the chance that my ER+, PR+ breast cancer will recur;
Yin - sacrifice my ovaries/Yang - significantly reduce my chances of ovarian cancer.

Why write about the "downside" of cancer, when it's a given?

Because this blog is intended for the woman who might be traveling along a similar path,
but who has reached a poin where she stops and wonders:
Is there something wrong with me?

Be assured.
There is nothing wrong with you.

Cancer sucks.