Entering Survivorship; Being Cured
What makes one a true survivor? If a patient is cured after 5 years, they are allowed to enter what patients with cancer and support groups call "survivorship." If this is the time period for one to be cured, how is it so that there are often many cancers that come back even after one has been "cancer-free" for five years?
Making Cancer Public
What I found very interesting is the history of cancer. It absolutely amazed me that women would go to the doctor back in the day and wake up with no breasts. They were gone, without any warning and without consent. What I further question is the cancer language. Often in the old obituaries, it was stated that a person died from a "long illness." In today's obitiuaries, you read the line about "losing their battle," but it is also okay to state the word cancer in there as well. Why does it seem like cancer was such a taboo, like it was something to be embarrassed about when it affects so many people?
Addressing the Gender Gap
After looking at the histories of both breast and prostate cancer, it is apparent that breast cancer has more of a history in the past. It is also known that the campaigning and movement started earlier than that of prostate cancers. However, why is it that more people know more about breast cancer than prostate, when they both result in a similar amount of new predicted cases for 2012? According to the American Cancer Society, it is predicted that there would be 226,870 new breast cancer cases and 241,740 new prostate cancer cases. Prostate cancer is predicted to affect more males and yet it still thrown under the rug compared to breast cancer. When one sees the pink ribbon, they automatically know what it symbolizes. But when one sees the blue ribbon they do not know. There are several products sold at a variety of stores (grocery, department, gas stations, malls, etc.) for breast cancer ranging from clothing, accessories, house products, candles, jewelry, coffee mugs, and checks. When you think about prostate cancer, there is little to none of these products out for sale to the public. Not only is their disparity in these products but also in the funding, awareness, media coverage, and research. Most people know the events and charities that are in support of breast cancer, but it is shocking that most do not know the ones that are supporting the other gender. For example, one of these events lasts the month of November. Many of my college friends take a part in "No Shave November" and they have contests with each other to see who can go the longest without shaving or have the dirtiest facial hair. None of them even care to know the cause for the reason why this event is created around the nation.
Why a Gender Gap is Present?
I find myself asking why a gender gap is present in society for such an illness that affects both men and women. Then it seems to make sense when you look at it sociologically. As researched, prostate cancer is a threat for a man's masculinity. It is a taboo! Where all men usually want to keep it to themselves and not admit it to others. Men do not talk about their bodies openly as women do. So with this being said, men are less willing to engage in political action. These organizations are not only for the males but for their families. Their families are the ones that nag them to go to the doctor. I know for most of the males they always try to be tough and avoid the doctor unless something is majorly wrong. It is also true that prostate cancer affects men that are usually older than the women that are affected with breast cancer. Prostate cancer has hardly any symptoms in its early stages and it is a slower growing cancer. I am not trying to sound like it is the males and their stereotype that society places on them for the result of this gender gap, but it is also the organizations. The organizations and foundations that are to support prostate cancer and increase awareness do not cooperate or communicate with other organizations. They are all too busy fighting with each other to claim the ownership of addressing all of the activities, including raising awareness, funding, lobbying, etc.
Closing the Gender Gap
Will there ever be a day where society will place prostate cancer just as important to breast cancer? Where the media will portray the blue ribbon just as much as the pink? It is fact that skin cancer is the most common type of cancer, and the second type of cancer for men and for women is breast and prostate. Will there ever be a day where both come together in the fight for awareness and together make a movement?
The Gender Gap and the Future
If there will ever be a time where the gender gap closes or minimizes, it is hard to tell. But it is also hard to predict what our society will look like in the future. Today women go to see a doctor annually, whether they are healthy or not. They get their annual mammogram and pap smear. The question I want you to think about is do men go to the doctor annually? Men are very reluctant to go to the doctor and get the uncomfortable DRE (digital rectal exam) that is coupled with PSA (prostate specific antigen) blood tests that are used to detect the early stages of the disease. What others do not know is that this exam is recommended annually for men over 50 and 40 for those men with a family history of cancer. It also is very questionable to me why women go to see an Oncologist and men see an Urologist, when they both are cancer? Oncology is the study of cancer, so why do men have to see another doctor that is specialized to study urinary tracts of both men and women and the reproductive system of men? Women do not see the gynecologist for their cancer that is in the reproductive system.
The Future of the Medical Field and Society
Medicine is constantly changing and adapting, but so is society. In the future, are annual exams going to be required for all ages and sexes? Will there be more specialized doctors to treat cancer-meaning will there be an Oncologist for breast cancer, an Oncolgoist for prostate cancer, and so on? Will there be an establishment of equality between the two cancers and create a movement together? As the rates of cancer keep increasing, will it just be concluded that it is too big of a problem to be solved? Or as more people are diagnosed, will society become more comfortable with this diagnosis and talk about it more? After working at camp this past summer, there were many times where campers would tell me how much they are bullied, how they do not have real friends because everyone feels sorry for them, and how embarrassed they are of the scars that they have from treatment. It is hard to think of how someone so young not only has to go through such a hardship but on top of that be bullied because of their illness. Be forced to not be the norm. Be forced to be the outsider. So I ask these questions: What if scars were sexy? What if they were beautiful? They tell a story. A special story that says "I survived." "I am a survivor." And what if baldness was celebrated?