{I will preface this post by saying that anyone that is diagnosed with cancer has their world changed forever. The clock begins to tick, world closes in on you, and your world is changed in a way that will never be the same. I am being provocative. I am challenging.}
For those of you that I have had the privilege of meeting, and for those of you I have not met, you know and will come to find that cancer is the story of my life. It is what I have dedicated my professional career to try and make an impact. I am fortunate enough to be able to combine my passion, my talent, and my wisdom all into one single focus.
In October I made a commitment to wear a bow tie the same color of the cancer awareness for that specific month. October was easy, it was Breast Cancer Awareness Month. I already had a few pink bow ties, so I found the right one, tied it, snapped a "selfie" and reposted as my profile picture to twitter.
However, in the middle of October I began to seek out the right bow tie for November's awareness campaign, Lung Cancer. The official color for Lung Cancer Awareness month is clear, or pearl, since Lung Cancer is the "unseen" cancer. I began searching high and low and could not find anything that would be representative for the month. I couldn't find anything that could carry the weight of representing me, Lung Cancer, or trying to bring more awareness to the disease.
Which made me begin to think about the differences between Breast Cancer Awareness and Lung Cancer Awareness. Why is there so much support, media coverage, focus, and "pink" apparel?
Why in the world of cancer are we segmented? Why is there classism? Why do we work on our own causes, in silos, versus working together to try and help to amplify the message for everyone? A boob, a lung, an anus, a brain should not dictate whether or not our voices are heard, they should all be heard, equally.
Seems to me that the fight for cancer awareness is just as fragmented as the rest of healthcare. Whomever shouts the loudest, gets the most attention, has the most money or celebrity status, or has the largest tribe gets what they want. It is not based on need necessarily.
However, there is a harsh reality when it comes to the differences between Breast Cancer and Lung Cancer. Have you ever done a Google image search on "breast cancer people" and then done the same search on images for "lung cancer people." Have you? Try it. (click on my links to see)
On the breast cancer side you see pink ribbons. You see women with smiles on their faces. You see people being active. You see many people coming together to band around and support one another on the topic of breast cancer. It is a club. A club that no one wants to join, but upon membership, it is a family of people that appear positive, healthy, supportive, both young and old, all races, all places.  It is something that no one asks to get, but just happens to you because you happen to be a woman. Breast cancer and the pink ribbon has become a badge of honor. A badge of courage.
It is as if marketing has taken over and made Breast Cancer vogue and sexy.
Now look at the link for Lung Cancer. You do not see the same images. As a matter of fact, you see the exact opposite. You see patients that are in the worse scenarios imaginable. You see mostly men, that are so gaunt, skinny, suffering from cachexia, wasted away to almost nothing that they appear to look like the same images we see from the concentration camps of WWII. You see in almost all of the images a person with a cigarette in their hand. You see very graphic and gruesome images of what lungs look like from smoking. This is the club that no one wants to join as well, but upon a diagnosis, it is also a club that appears everyone wastes away. This isn't the club where people are banding together, bonding over collaborating on events, or walks, or rides, or 3 day events, or having a dialogue out in the open in front of everyone.  Everyone that is in this club is sick, on their death bed. The most disturbing is that the members in this club all asked to be in it by making the choice to smoke.
This isn't the same badge of courage. This isn't the same badge of honor. This is the badge of stigma that you asked to have this happen, that you paid for it to happen. This is the scarlet letter, the Clear Letter LC, the one that no one sees. No one discusses. The one that is locked up behind closed doors.
Maybe it is the harsh reality that the media has done so much to try and make all of us not want to smoke that it naturally labeled and gave a stigma to Lung Cancer. Perhaps it is the work of trying to make a big impact and stop smoking, that now there needs to be even more work tone done to first rectify the stigma of Lung Cancer, and then second, allow us to bring the dialogue to the forefront, to discuss it openly, and to try and amplify the message to get the same attention, research, dollars, and focus on Lung Cancer as we have had for Breast Cancer?
Maybe it is because due to Lung Cancer's deadly nature that there are not any celebrities alive long enough to discuss it, to throw dollars at it, or to make it a national movement? Maybe it is that no one wants to "market" Lung Cancer because the face of it may not be as healthy or sexy? Maybe it is because people are not around long enough to begin a movement to have millions of dollars donated towards the cause? Maybe it is because once you are diagnosed with lung cancer the typical patient has a median survival of 6 months, and are too sick to walk/run/discuss/do a lecture series, and are worried about other arrangements?
Perhaps breast cancer can help lung cancer out? Maybe work together to help amplify the messages? Maybe bring the conversation to masses? Maybe it is a matter of having all of those people and families that have been impacted by breast cancer to ban together with the families that are experiencing or lost someone to lung cancer, and walk/run/talk for them?
Perhaps this is a function of reality, circumstance, and marketing?
1. Reality is that Lung Cancer kills 2X as many women per year as breast cancer will.
2. Reality is that Lung Cancer kills 3X as many men per year as prostate cancer.
3. Reality is 160,000 Americans will die of Lung Cancer this year.
4. 80% of those 160,000 deaths are in women and men that have never smoked or are non-smokers.
5. The 5 year survival rate for Lung Cancer is about 16%.
6. That survival rate has remained the same for the last 40 years.
7. It takes the average community hospital 30-45 days to make a diagnosis of Lung Cancer.
8. Once diagnosed with Lung Cancer, the median survival is only around 6 months.
It is my responsibility. It is your responsibility. It is the responsibility of every healthcare professional that touches or works with cancer. It is even the responsibility of those that actively and courageously wear pink with pride.
We all have a social responsibility to know the truth. To know the facts. To work together to help one another.
It is our responsibility to talk for all of those who have passed before, and for those that are battling today and do not have a voice. It is our duty to help amplify their story. To talk openly and freely about how the story of Lung Cancer is deadly, dreadful, and needs to have a razor focus so we can cut into it like we have with Breast Cancer.
Pink is the framework. Lung Cancer is the challenge.
What will your story be in this saga?
As always, you can feel free to contact me at: CANCERGEEK@GMAIL.COM
~CancerGeek