Breast Cancer Awareness

Envy wrote:

Reminds me - Russell Howard (comedian) poked fun at how a newspaper here published something which decided practically everything causes cancer. :blink: I'm curious as to what kinds of things they wrote. I haven't found a full online version of it yet, but I did find this short list:

www.thedailydust.co.uk/2009/02/19/20-str...y-will-cause-cancer/

It reminds me of my high school health class, all the girls were totally freaked by the end of the hour when the teacher basically told us that everything from drinking water to breathing was potentially unhealthy! Not specifically cancer-related, but that kind of paranoia reminds me of that class.

scootiebee wrote:

Envy wrote:

Reminds me - Russell Howard (comedian) poked fun at how a newspaper here published something which decided practically everything causes cancer. :blink: I'm curious as to what kinds of things they wrote. I haven't found a full online version of it yet, but I did find this short list:

www.thedailydust.co.uk/2009/02/19/20-str...y-will-cause-cancer/

It reminds me of my high school health class, all the girls were totally freaked by the end of the hour when the teacher basically told us that everything from drinking water to breathing was potentially unhealthy! Not specifically cancer-related, but that kind of paranoia reminds me of that class.

We didn't have health classes in high school. The only thing I can think of which is close is 'Health and Social' which is a college course and therefore optional. We only had..Physical education and sex education..Oh. And 'Religious Education', but I think they changed that to 'Citizenship and R.E.', i.e. C.A.R.E..Which might possibly cover health..It was introduced after I left, so I wouldn't know.

Remembered something from 'Monsters Inside Me' (a programme about parasites) where a guy was mis-diagnosed with cancer when he actually had some kind of worm parasite living in his blood and causing his spleen to swell up. That led me to think about when my mother was told she might possibly have cancer.

She had all sorts of pains in her stomach, intestinal and kidney area, and I remember she sat my brother and I down and started to talk about 'what would happen if she died'. Yes. That talk. We were just speechless. We knew that bowel cancer etc. ran on her side of the family which was why she was almost certain it was cancer, especially as the doctors had stated it as a possibility. In the end, the doctors had no idea what she had, and just told her to be more selective of what she ate, to stay away from adventurous food and to return if any major problems reoccurred.

I just remember feeling completely mortified at the possibility of having my dad to support us and in retrospect, that that talk was probably the second most dreadful talk I've ever had to face. Well. It's probably equally dreadful to the sex ed. talk from parents when I think about it. Seem to recall I refused to look or talk to my mother for a while as well. If she had died, that would've been awful, but I think it was my way of trying to get used to the idea of her not being around. Either that or I felt annoyed she had even tried to give us that talk - could've been a mixture of both.

Neither my brother nor myself were brought up to think lightly of death. I've gotten used to the idea as I've grown up, but at the time, the idea was awful. To this date, I've never attented a family funeral as well (the only two deaths in the family have been in family abroad), which doesn't really help 'desensitise' me to the idea of deaths in the family.

Bumping up the thread becasue I've just been informed how one of my high-school professors passed away becasue of breast cancer at quite a young age. I'm still somehow in shock at these news.
She didn't teach me, but I knew her quite good. She was such a dear person. I'm really sad she's gone.
She left behind a young daughter who's turning two this July...
I'm quite at a loss for words really. It's just too sad altogether...

I'm sorry to hear that. It's always a shock when someone dies at a young age, especially from such a horrible reason.