Once again, a pool player asked me, “Why do you have so many pink things?” I’d been asked the question before and wrote a column about my answer, but this time, my reply to the man was partially dishonest. I told him that my mother, aunt, and two best friends were all breast cancer survivors and my wearing pink was educational and a show of support for all survivors. I say that the answer was partially dishonest because I was also poking pink in the eye of another male pool player who had made sneering references to my color choice, implying that “real men don’t wear pink.”
Each October, the National Football League allows an exception to the “uniform dress code” so that players can wear pink accessories in support of breast cancer awareness. I change my profile picture at the top of this column in October to show me wearing pink, and attend my pool league sessions wearing pink shirts, carrying a pink pool case and gabbing on an iPhone with a pink protective case. But what about September, or November?
The American Cancer Society estimated that from 292,130 diagnoses of invasive and in situ breast cancer there would be 40,290 female breast cancer deaths in 2015. Which means that more than 110 women each day of the year died as a result of breast cancer. Every person reading that statistic should look around and visualize 110 women disappearing from the life that he or she is living. Imagine a life that subtracts 110 people from your surroundings, every day.
The American Cancer Society has some suggestions about how to reduce a woman’s chances of getting breast cancer: achieve and maintain a healthy weight throughout life; adopt a physically active lifestyle; consume a healthy diet, with an emphasis on plant foods; limit consumption of alcohol. None of these things will guarantee that a woman will avoid breast cancer, but the risks are lowered with the adherence to these behaviors.
My sister’s youngest daughter — my second niece — wrote a post on a social media site that advocated for women to conduct breast self-examinations (BSE). She implored women to “check it out,” to examine their breasts, to understand and question abnormalities because there is a lot at stake, and life and love can be altered by the result. She made the post after a scare, when she found a lump in her breast that was determined to be benign. She remembered the surgeries of her grandmother and great-aunt — both breast cancer survivors — and is now a vocal advocate for the behaviors that can detect the possibilities of danger.
DeAngelo Williams, a running back for the Pittsburgh Steelers, donated money for 53 mammograms in honor of his mother, who died of breast cancer at 53. I cannot match his monetary commitment, but the small thing that I do is to try to stimulate a conversation about breast cancer. I will continue to wear pink in October, but I think that the conversation must grow beyond that month. I want the people with whom I interact to ask me why I am wearing pink, so that I can give them statistics about the incidences of breast cancer, with the hope that my pink shirt, my pink pool-cue case, my pink wrist-band and my pink phone will give pause, and help the cause.
It’s a pink thing, and I want everyone to understand.