Breast cancer awareness

I have never hidden the fact that I am a survivor when I write here.  It is part of me and part of my writing about my life. But that isn't the way things are in my life.  When I was first diagnosed, I didn't want many people to know.  I have no idea why I reacted that way.  For the most part I didn't want my family telling anyone.

I have hated Breast Cancer Awareness  month for five years now.  It was a month long minder of what I had gone through, and a reminder of the fact I went for so many years without exams and mammograms.  October was a month of sheer hell for me.  Constant reminders everywhere I turned.

I don't know why this year is different, but I wore pink when we went out for our pedicures, and a trip to the grocery store.  I really wasn't publicizing the fact that I was a survivor, although if anyone looked closely at my necklace, they would have seen the pink heart with the metal ribbon on it and the drop with the saying of what can cancer do.

My pink wasn't the  baby pink associated with breast cancer awareness.  No, I was in hot pink and a pink floral print blouse - but unlike previous years, I did wear pink.  This year, for some reason, things are different.

I still do not want SIL's parents to know about my cancer.  I still have that hang up, and I don't know why.  His mother is slowly wasting away from end stage renal failure.  She never took care of her diabetic condition.  The end surely isn't that far away for her.  I understand it's dialysis 6 hours a day, five days a week.  But I don't want them to know.  They have always hated us so much.  I guess I don't want them to know there is any weakness here.

So on Breast Cancer Awareness Day, I did don pink.  In small ways, I let the world see signs of my survivor-ship.  Who knows, next year I may wear a large pink ribbon that says survivor on it.