Barb’s Burblings

Yesterday at work we “celebrated” Breast Cancer Awareness at our all-staff meeting. Coworkers got up and told their tales of breast cancer. I didn’t share mine.

My grandfather died in November of 1997. My grandmother turned 80 the next month, and early the next year was diagnosed with breast cancer. She went through treatment and has been in remission since 1998. She’s still going relatively strong and is almost 91 years old.

I don’t remember when my aunt was diagnosed with cancer in her mouth. I want to say it was spring of 2005 (around Easter, though I found out after, because who wants to bring down a holiday like that, right?). I watched as she fought treatment for a cancer that she didn’t deserve. She never smoked, never did anything like that. She taught reading at a local college, and read Agatha Christie and Anne of Green Gables, and loved watching Trading Spaces. She had four children, and a grandson, and fought the cancer and dealt with depression and died the day before her daughters’ 26th birthday. She didn’t get to see her second grandson or her daughters graduate from medical school.

It’s a story similar to so many about breast cancer, but I can’t help but feel that it’s not just breast cancer that needs awareness and research. People are out there dying of all forms of cancer. It’s not that I don’t support breast cancer research, it’s just that when I choose to spend my funds on charity, I have to prioritize. So when I give, it’s to causes that hit closer to home for me. Breast cancer is something that hits close to home…but more down the block than in my front yard.