The Universality of Breast Cancer

Well it's nearing the end of the month, my story could go on forever but it's probably best I find a place to leave it off. Breast Cancer Awareness Month was a huge success as far as I'm concerned.

Many new voices in the community have been popping up over the past year and they've proven to be both insightful and universal. The first step to finding a cure to breast cancer, or any cancer for that matter, is to get people excited about it.

If only the directly effected care, then nothing will get done. However, when we can convince people who don't seem to be connected with the disease that it is important for them to care, then we will have a trampoline to boost us over that first major hurdle.

Breast Cancer is devious, destructive, heart breaking, and beautiful. The moment a woman is able to step away from herself, and realize she has more life left in however many months, years or decades than in the rest of her life leading up to that point, is one of the most beautiful in her life. I witnessed that moment in my mom, PJ Hamel.

I was able to see from an outside perspective what true transformation really looks like. When I was young my mom made herself lunch, and on her way out to the dining room table from the kitchen, she dropped it on the floor. Her face turned bright red, she said a myriad of words not worth repeating here, and then she topped off the tantrum by magnificently tossing a chair clear across the room. Needless to say a blowup like this seems impossible now.

We all have our struggles in life. I have traveled to Africa and seen people that could make a BC survivor's flesh crawl. And yet when we are in any situation we tend to see only the horrible problems we are facing. It really doesn't matter that someone else has worse problems, because they aren't us. And of course this truth is universal for everyone and every dilemma. In Accra, Ghana I saw a man, bleeding from third degree burns covering his entire body, face, and hands, get out of a wheel chair and walk across the dirt ground in nothing but sandals to go see the dermatologist, who was only available on Tuesdays.

Trust me there is always someone worse off, but that does not mean a person diagnosed with BC doesn't have to face death just the same as everyone else; which, in a way, just goes to show the universality of breast cancer. Since we all live and die, it becomes a BC survivors job to show the rest of us how.