I’m 0 weeks and craving a more effective way to raise breast cancer awareness.

This was my status message last night. It had 21 “likes” by morning…way more than I could have expected.

Everyone seems to be playing this game:

Hey!! This is what its about…Ok pretty ladies, it’s that time of year again, in support of breast cancer awareness!! So we all remember last years game of writing your bra color as your status?…..or the way we like to have our handbag handy? Remember last year so many people took part that it made national news and, the constant updating of status reminded everyone why we’re doing this and helped raise awareness!! Do NOT tell any males what the status’ mean, keep them guessing!! And please copy and paste (in a message )this to all your female friends to see if we can make a bigger fuss this year than last year!!! I did my part… now YOUR turn ! Go on ladies…and let’s have all the males guessing! .. It’s time to confuse the men again (not that its really that hard to do :)) Everyone knows it makes their brains work wonders on what we’re talking about!! The idea is to choose the month you were born and the day you were born. Pass this on to the girls only and lets see how far it reaches around. The last one about the bra went round all over the world. So you’ll write… I’m (your birth month) weeks and I’m craving (your birth date)!!! as your status. Example: Feb 14th= I’m 2 weeks and craving Chocolate mints!!January-1week Febuary-2weeks March-3weeks April-4weeks May-6weeks June-8weeks July-10weeks August-12weeks September-13weeks October-14weeks November-16weeks December-18weeks Days of the month: 1-Skittles 2-Starburst 3-Kit-Kat 4-M&M’s 5-Galaxy 6-Crunchie 7-Dairy Milk 8-Lollipop 9-Peanut Butter Cups 10-Meat Balls 11-Twizzlers 12-Bubble Gum 13-Hershey’s Kisses 14-Chocolate Mints 15-Twix 16-Resse’s Fastbreak 17-Fudge 18-Cherry Jello 19-Milkyway 20-Creme Eggs 21-Pickles 22-Skittles 23-Gummy Bears 24-Gummy Worms 25-Strawberry Pop Tarts 26-Starburst 27-Mini Eggs 28-Kit-Kat Chunkie 29-Double Chocolate Chip Crunchy Cookies 30-Smarties 31-Chocolate Cake

That’s fine, whatever.. their facebooks, their lives. I’m not personally hurt or offended by the silliness, but I am lucky not to have lost anyone to breast cancer or suffer from infertility. So, yeah, I won’t be playing. At least, no more than I did–with a sarcastic version. I just don’t get it. If you are like me and many others, you saw all of your friends announcing pregnancies, knowing they weren’t pregnant, and scratched your head. Later, I got the email and was all, “Ohhhh, okay.. wait.. what? What does that have to do with breast cancer? How does tricking people into thinking I’m pregnant raise awareness? I’m not even ‘allowed’ to tell anyone what it’s about, so how am I making anyone aware of breast cancer?” It’s strange.

Have you seen this blog post? It’s a good read. http://cgwardphotography.blogspot.com/2011/08/regarding-facebook-breast-cancer.html?spref=fb

Here are my own, personal reasons:

• If my family thought I was pregnant again, they’d probably all be devastated. Not because they do not want more babies in the family, but because another pregnancy could very well end up killing me and, even more likely, kill any babies I became pregnant with. I wouldn’t do that to them.

• When I was in high school, I was best friends with “M”. Her mother had colon cancer and was always in and out of hospitals for a while. Eventually, she was just cared for at home. I watched this sweet woman, rapidly it seems, lose her battle to cancer. When I would go over to M’s on good days, she would call me back to say hello… on bad days, I would hear her moaning in pain from the living room. There was nothing fun or funny about it.

• I have 2 friends, “J” and “L”, who are both suffering from infertility. Each badly wants a baby and, after several, several months of J trying for a second child and several years of L trying for her first, neither has had a successful pregnancy. I can’t imagine how they feel seeing all the “Gotcha!” pregnancy posts. J not only suffers from infertility, but also lost her mother to breast cancer. I hate to speak for others, but I’m fairly certain that she doesn’t find the games beneficial at all, and instead–finds them rather hurtful. I do know for sure that she doesn’t like them. The fact that the game has to do with faking a pregnancy just adds insult to injury. Here is another (similar) great post on why this game sucks for the infertile: http://infertility.about.com/b/2011/09/03/im-pregnant-just-kidding-new-facebook-meme-for-breast-cancer-awareness.htm

One of the comments on that article implies that the article is suggesting that you shouldn’t even talk about your dinner because someone may be hungry and offended. The f^#k? How does someone get that from the article? I think what it’s saying is more along the lines of: If you knowingly have some starving, homeless people on your Facebook (which would be odd, but go with it), it would be flat out evil to be all, “Guess what? I just had an awesome steak dinner in my warm, comfy home!” as a joke.

When you add all of that to the awkward feeling one must get after genuinely congratulating a person they think just announced a pregnancy, only to find that it’s a game..well, the game doesn’t seem very fun or funny anymore.

I apologize for the fact that this post isn’t funny or entertaining..but, you know, neither is cancer. Let’s spread some real awareness. Post some links with some real information on breast cancer. Here is one link the has multiple links conveniently pasted on the same page:

http://www.nbcam.org/patient_free_information.cfm

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