The state of women’s health in this country is in crisis. In light of the recent Susan G. Komen foundation controversy, I found myself feeling at a loss.
How has women’s health become so warped and politicized? How has it reached so far beyond the realm of actual women battling actual diseases?
I decided to consult my very first and closest source on women’s health — my mother.
In 2005, just before I started my freshman year of high school, my mother was diagnosed with stage-two breast cancer.
In what now seems like a distant memory, a blurry, unreal year and a half, my mother endured two surgeries, eight rounds of chemotherapy, six weeks of radiation and almost a year of infusions on a clinical trial.
She didn’t stop or slow down for a second. She continued to work full time and did everything to support my brother and I.
As much as she tried to hide it from us, however, we couldn’t help but notice the physical and emotional strain the treatments were taking on her.
The sickness and its rigorous treatment had drained the energy out of my usually lively, vivacious mother.
Suddenly, the pink wristbands and water bottles, the cutesy T-shirts with slogans such as “Save the ta tas” and “I heart boobies” left me feeling strange and isolated. Was I not in on the game?
How had the fight against cancer, a real disease that was changing my family, been diluted into a line of tacky, bubblegum-colored sweatshirts and gimicky tank tops?
Besides, born a freckly, natural redhead whose style reflected a mature, earthy palette, my mom never hesitated to remark: “I hate pink.”
The most valuable aid my mother received during her treatment did not come from a wealthy organization or a gift basket full of bumper stickers and drink cozies.
It came from concerned neighbors offering to help out with the yard work. It came from family friends bringing meals. It came from my own brother, 19 years old and in his freshman year of college, chauffeuring me to my after-school activities while taking our mom to her treatments.
The most valuable support came from the network of caring, helpful people my mother surrounded herself with.The most generous outreach we did receive came from local, Indiana-based organizations.
The Sharon L. Bassett foundation is an Indiana-based organization that not only raises funding toward research and awareness, but also provides critical assistance to families living with cancer.
Another organization is the I.W.I.N. Foundation, or Indiana Women In Need, a nonprofit dedicated to providing women going through cancer treatment with practical, domestic assistance.
It gives clients vouchers that go toward housekeeping, meals, childcare and more — tasks a working, fatigued mother going through treatment might need some assistance providing.
When I talked to my mother recently, as time has passed and scars have healed, I asked her what her take was on her experience.
“I am not cancer,” my mother told me. “I am more than that, and I refuse to define myself that way.”
— alliston@indiana.edu
