Project Pink » breast cancer

Project Pink | Help and Hope | No. 3

administrator — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 18:42:06 +0000

Just Show Up. If you have cancer, you can beat it. If you are the friend, you can help. You don’t have to perform, get it right, figure it out or know it all. Just show up for the fight.

Ann’s Diary: Cash For Cancer

administrator — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 06:59:55 +0000

Did you hear about the woman who claimed to have cancer to make money? It sounds like the beginning of a bad joke. Here’s the link: Claiming Cancer, Committing a Crime.

If you get to the tail end of this article without exploding, you will read that her lawyer claims she has a mental disorder. I would think so. Anyone who uses cancer in order to make cash has a problem beyond what I can determine.

I promise not to go crazy on this person, after all, if she does have a mental problem then that’s awful. But mental or not, you can’t take one of the worse things that can happen to a life and twist it up and into your way of stealing other people’s money. Talk about taking the bang out of a donated buck.

So I hope all the people who gave her money can find some solace in the fact that I, a cancer survivor, thank them from the bottom of my heart for their compassion. And I ask them to hang in there for the rest of us real survivors, who leaned on other people’s time, cash and compassion during what was obviously the worst time of our lives. That kind of help and support made my pain a tiny bit more manageable, and six years later, I am still very, very grateful.

So I tip my hat to you and I am sorry you got mixed up in somebody’s alleged mental problem. The love you put behind those written checks or hard earned cash means something to me, who didn’t even receive them. You gave money to a fake cancer survivor and a real cancer survivor thanks you for it.

I hope that knowledge puts some of the bang back into your stolen buck.

Ann’s Diary: Life In Tattoos

administrator — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 16:45:44 +0000

I have a friend who has 49 tattoos. They are beautifully displayed across her arms, back, backside, ankles and other places I haven’t asked about.

I am not a tattoo person–meaning I have never gone out and paid for a tattoo. But I have three. They are the pinpoint pricks the radiation oncology group had to put on my smooth white chest after my double mastectomy and chemotherapy treatments were over. They mapped out exactly where the radiation would hit in order to kill any residual breast cancer cells and in combination with my other treatments help to save my life.

That was 6 years ago, and I feel wonderful today, and I recently bumped into my friend with the tattoos. She told me she’d added 2 more to make it a grand total of 49. She pulled up her sleeve and showed me her very latest one–it was the saying ”Life Is Not Neat.”

I’d heard her mom say those words quite often during my childhood. She said it to remind herself and her children (and their friends) that our paths in this world can often be confusing and difficult but just as easily can be exciting and rewarding and full of adventure and growth. So when life isn’t neat, you have to sweep up as best you can (my friend’s tattoo comes complete with a broom) and get to the next thing life has in store.

I remember those words all the time in my life and it was somehow comforting to see that wisdom inked out on the arm of my dear old friend.

Then I pulled down my neckline and said with mock defense, “Well remember I have tattoos, too.” There revealed was one of my three blue spots and I told her, “the technician who put it on me said it’s the world from far away.”

But now I see my tattoos say the very same thing my old friend’s does–Life Is Not Neat. Stuff happens. Cancer happened–to me. And when the going got tough I had to grab my broom and start sweeping. I’m still sweeping today.

And so far I’ve found that if I sweep it up the right way, hold on tightly to my broom and keep up with people who make me smile, laugh, and hope–especially old friends with 49 tattoos, then life for this young breast cancer survivor, whether neat or not, is well worth it.

Ann’s Diary: Bravely Being You

ann — Fri, 28 May 2010 17:38:58 +0000

I’ve been asked to take part in Tilbury House Publisher’s Virtual Tour themed “Bravely Being You.” I am honored to have the tour visit me here at my website, Project Pink, and invite you to read the following blog in honor of and titled for the Bravely Being You Tour. Leave a comment and be eligible for these prizes.

It was my choice to not reconstruct my breasts after my double mastectomy for breast cancer. My husband, when faced with the your-wife-or-her-breasts choice said simply, “Let them go, I want you healthy.” So I let them go, and all they represented went with them–femininity, sexiness, beauty, not to mention cute clothing choices. I mean, navel-plunging necklines aren’t meant to expose actual navels. So in between searching for shirts that don’t make me look like a twelve year old boy and tossing the unopened Victoria’s Secret catalog in the recycle bin, I’ve been searching for the true meaning of beauty. And against all I’d ever believed growing up, I’ve found that real beauty has nothing to do with my chest. It has to do with everything but–like my laugh (ask my kids), or my smile, (ask my mother) and my kindness (ask my BFFs), and in those cute pants that show off my backside (just ask my husband.) And it has to do with fighting cancer–and so far beating it–and being grateful that I still get to be here to teach my first grader how to tie her shoes. I thought my femininity, sexiness and beauty rested in the two curves about my navel and the size 34B bras I once owned. But according to the film festival crowd I spoke in front of last month, and my kids and my friends and all that life is showing me now, beauty really belongs in choices–to be who you are as you are–and to not be afraid to show it.

Project Pink | Help and Hope | No. 1

ann — Tue, 18 May 2010 20:17:22 +0000

Go Ahead And Panic: People want to say “you’ll be fine. It’s going to be fine.” That may be true eventually, but right now being newly diagnosed with breast cancer is scary. And it’s okay to be scared.

Ann’s Diary: No Salt On My Margaritas

ann — Wed, 12 May 2010 18:07:01 +0000

Sitting awaiting my first chemotherapy treatment for breast cancer, I was scared as hell. When the nurse came in I jumped, scanning her hands for whatever chemotherapy might look like. It turns out she wasn’t holding the clear liquid bag that would eventually drain into my veins; instead she had a Priority Mail package from my BFF Kristin. Inside was a cute little bag, some food and a card that made me laugh my ass off; it was an old looking photo of a woman surrounded by her kids in bathing suits, each one about to hit the pool. Inside it said, “Now remember kids, no running, no diving and no salt on my margaritas.” I held that card in front of me as the liquid made its way into my body. It was the funniest card and the simplest thing but it did monumental things for my attitude as I began the fight of my life.

Ann’s Diary: My Mother’s Day Gift

ann — Sun, 09 May 2010 23:12:14 +0000

My kids keep asking me what I want for Mother’s Day. I keep telling them I already got it.

Six years ago today I stood in a backyard on a sunny day hugging my son so tightly he might have lost his breath. I released him in enough time for him to run down the hill and chase a ball that his 5 year old self desperately wanted to play with–carefree and happy in the knowledge that I was still with him, having just been diagnosed with breast cancer. What followed was a painful year of surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation but we did it–we all did it–my family and I made it to the next Mother’s Day, and the next, and the next and well…here we are.

This morning I hugged that same little boy, now on the threshold of the tween years, before he ran to grab a super-sized styrofoam airplane he desperately wanted to throw in the field. My cancer is still something my kids, husband and I all think about, but for the most part we are carefree and happy in the knowledge that while it did take me down breast cancer did not take me out. I am still here. I am still a mother to my children. I still get to open my eyes and see the faces of these little people so desperate to please me on a day like today. That’s why when they ask me what I want for this big holiday I tell them I already got it.

I got to be here today. That is what I wanted. And it’s what I hope I’ll always get for Mother’s Day.

Ann’s Diary: Where Pink Ribbons Belong

ann — Thu, 06 May 2010 18:22:03 +0000

When Lynn Redgrave died this week of breast cancer I used the F word. I don’t usually do that, but like its rhyming counterpart the S word, the F word, which I usually hate and find disgustingly ill used, fits like a glove when coupled with cancer.

I was putting my daughter’s hair in pony tails this morning wondering how many wonderful people do we have to lose to this disease before we get so ticked off we buckle down and figure it out? And I don’t just mean a cure to breast cancer, though I’ll dance in the streets and pass out fake cigars when that happens. I mean a cause. Why in the world are we getting this disease and what are we doing in this world to cause it? Is it the food, the pollution, the atmosphere, the color of my dress, my shoes too tight, WHAT? What is going on?

My daughter chose two little pink elastics to put in her hair so I wrapped them around her long blonde locks and began to think. I love a pink ribbon as much as the next person, but what I’d really like to see out there plastered on every soup can and body lotion and tote bag is a big fat nothing. As in we solved the problem, there is no more breast cancer. We don’t need them, we’re not using them, take your ribbons back, we solved the breast cancer problem.

That way we all live the way we’d hoped for before cancer broke in and stole our long and happy lives. Then people like Lynn Redgrave would still be here.

And we could save the pink ribbons to wrap around the bundled braids of little girls everywhere, where they belong.

News: The Diaries To Air on Discovery Latin America

Linda — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 21:23:26 +0000

The documentary heads to Latin America and a huge audience that we are thrilled to be reaching. The Breast Cancer Diaries is airing on Discovery Latin America.

Air date is October 4th. Ann is busy being interviewed by Latin America media (one of her many assets–she is fluent in Spanish!)

Last year in October The Breast Cancer Diaries was honored to be featured on Discovery Health in the United States. This year we expand our reach to Latin America.