"Renaissance Thinking About the Issues of Our Day"
What Breast Cancer is, and is not!
This is a very important video by a very brave and empathetic woman. I couldn't watch the entire tape though... I became overwhelmed with grief. Not only for the lady in the film but also for my mother who died 39 years ago, at age 57 from breast cancer. She didn’t have health insurance because she couldn’t work, having lost her husband some 20 years prior to coming down with this horrible health issue, thus obligating her to raise her 6 children alone. She had little to no support from anyone including her family who really didn’t understand what she was going through and had their own struggles with life.
I had two babies at the time and was living with my husband in our first home. Every morning I would awake and my mother would be the first thing on my mind. I thought about her suffering each and every moment while tending to my very young children. It's a good thing they were babies because they would not have understood why their mommy cried all the time. The worst part of all this was the fact that my mom had no health insurance, because of that she was at the mercy of a teaching hospital and I assume other charities were involved. Back in 1973 there was absolutely no dignity in being poor; you were considered a burden upon society, no matter what circumstances put you there. I did not see my mother’s scars but someone else in the family did and they said it was just horrifying and looked like butchery.
After the removal of her breast she underwent a series of experimental treatments, in other words she was a human guinea pig. She lost all her hair and became weaker with each passing day. My mother did not even last a full year after her initial operation and suffered greatly till the end (We were unaware of hospice because back then people viewed death and suffering as a normal part of existence, and it was not uncommon for people to die --and languish in pain-- at home.).
This is one of those memories that you do not conjure up very often. But today, a brave woman named Linda, made me think about one family’s tragedy with breast cancer… MY OWN. Carolyn aka thinkingblue
---
Meet the Komen Exec Behind the Planned Parenthood Defunding
http://jezebel.com/5881642/meet-the-komen-exec-behind-the-planned-parenthood-defunding
{{EXCERPT}} Susan G. Komen for the Cure is trying its very hardest to prove to its supporters that it didn't decide to stop giving grants to Planned Parenthood because of an internal or external right wing political agenda, which is steaming, obvious bullshit. Now, it turns out that people from inside Komen confirm that the decision was a political one, and the politics of Komen are swinging wildly to the right thanks to the metastasized ideology of Karen Handel, former Mama Grizzly, failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate, and longtime anti-Planned Parenthood crusader.
KAREN HANDEL NEEDS TO GO!
Tell Komen: Fire Karen Handel - sign petition:
Comments
From an earlier post on the subject:
Read Barbara Ehrenreich on the subject, and you won't ever again be tempted to support the Komen Races. http://www.barbaraehrenreich.com/cancerland.htm
You'd think, with all those billions invested in the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation by corporate America for breast cancer research, they would have found a cure by now. But no. It's not about cure, darlin'. Lord no! A cure would be end a cash cow for the industry!
As Ehrenreich points out, the group —including Big Pharma or the American Cancer Society— doesn't look at industrial pollution, toxins or environmental carcinogens for the cure for this epidemic of breast cancer. That would threaten profits everywhere, right?
It's not surprising that a "non-apologist for Israeli Apartheid" would headline their event. It's all corporate—follow the money.
And god I hate those pink ribbons and the perky positivity. It's a hideous disease caused in large part by a failure of government to protect our environment and our health from the health-damaging consequences of the profit motive.