Trapped in that narrow PET scan tube, I was repeatedly told to stay still each time I said I felt nauseous. I must just be hungry or desperate for caffeine, I reasoned, as the procedure requires an empty stomach. But in a moment that somehow seemed to happen in slow motion and yet had way too much momentum to stop, I threw up all over the tube and, gravity bonus, my shirt.
As I hastily cleaned myself up—shoutout to the tech for finally agreeing to pause once I was covered in vomit—I couldn’t help but wonder why no one had cared to listen to me. The bathroom mirror reflected a version of myself that I barely recognized. I looked disheveled and defeated, yes, but also wildly different from the images of breast cancer I was so used to seeing everywhere prior to my own initial diagnosis, in December 2015.
Relative to many other diseases, breast cancer gets surprisingly good PR, in part because of how many of us are lucky enough to survive it, and in part because of how we are then portrayed in the countless media images promoting all sorts of walks and talks and parades. Honestly, I'm impressed you’re even reading this right now, because these peppy images are even more saturated in October, during Breast Cancer Awareness Month. So much so that it's all too easy to think, “Ah, another breast cancer story. We’ve got that handled by now, don’t we?”
The fact of the matter is: we’re far from it.
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