From the first moment my wife discovered
she had breast cancer, there was a deafening silence from the men I know. Even
ones whose wives, mothers or girlfriends had breast cancer seemed to have
received a gag order from some Central Cancer Command and did little more than
mumble about the experience. Not one to shut up for any known reason, I started
this blog…That was four years ago – as time passed, people searching for
answers stumbled across my blog and checked out what I had to say. The
following entry appeared in April of 2011.
There are people
who feel that breast cancer gets too much attention.
Intellectually, I
suppose I can just barely understand their whine…sorry…concern. (http://www.thefword.org.uk/blog/2011/04/are_all_cancers)
While the comments on this blog are almost exclusively from women and the one
male works in a hospital with cancer patients, it sounds almost…trivial in its
arguments. And it may in fact either ignore or not understand how profoundly
breast cancer attacks not only women, but the men who adore them. At least in
the US.
In the land of
HOOTERS® “family restaurants”, the annual over-a-million-issue sale of SPORTS
ILLUSTRATED’s Swimsuit Issue, the worship of the Empire of Hefner as a gateway
drug for virtually every male porn addiction on the planet – you wonder why an
attack on the breast by a nearly invisible disease provokes a powerful
response?
I confess that
while I knew about breast cancer and cheered on various and sundry survivors,
the disease was a distant concern. Years ago, Liz’ diagnosis with Type 2
Diabetes launched me on first the Diabetes Walk and then the Tour de Cure
against Diabetes – my son, Josh and his wife will continue the tradition this
year as a team of at LEAST two! But now, of course, my focus shifts. Why?
Because breast
cancer has become personal to me, and horrible, and disfiguring in a way that
diabetes never was. It strikes not only at the very heart of femininity, but at
the very heart of the masculine response to femininity as well. But these
people with their “breast cancer gets too much attention” concerns miss the
point – as I did at first.
Breast cancer is a
sort of gateway condition through which much more horrible forms of cancer can
enter the human body. Lung cancer. Brain cancer. Bone cancer. Blood cancer. A good
friend of mine and his wife just received a monstrous fright – they thought she
might have a brain tumor. She didn’t, but bone cancer has been confirmed.
Another friend died from a brain tumor many years ago. Still others fear lung
cancer (which killed my mother-in-law), leukemia (the young son of some dear
friends recently beat this curse). Of COURSE not all of them are a result of
breast cancer; they represent a dark spectre that hangs over the 21st
Century. But a breast cancer cure might easily lead to a cure for other kinds
of cancer – it’s called “NASA spin off”. In the old days, NASA would invent
something for one purpose and then someone would find another use for it:
working with NASA to prevent vibration in rocket launches and aircraft, Bill
Kauman left NASA and started his own helicopter company...that hit hard times
and eventually birthed the Ovation Guitar Company. Weird, but true.
Who knows what
we’ll find as we seek a cure for breast cancer? Will a colorectal cancer cure
be far behind? We don’t know WHAT will happen once we strike up a real band to
march against breast cancer!
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