Warriors On Television Fight The Media

Commercials are everywhere, there is no complete escape. It seems that no matter where we go anymore, we cannot break away from the media’s foot hold on our society. Everywhere we look and anywhere we go there is advertising. Yet, what gets to me are the sad commercials thrown into my happy outings at seemingly non relevant events.
What brought this to my mind was a you tube link someone had posted on face book. The link included their personal message, “Please watch and support. My heart goes out.” While sweet, posting a video on face book doesn’t have the same sympathetic strings to pull. Usually because after, let’s call her Kelly, posts this touching video, her status changes to something like, “Kelly can’t wait to get so F’ed up tonight with her girls!!! Woooo!”
The video was about childhood cancer. It was beautiful, but sadly when left in this type of forum, one is left to wonder what the damage is we do by pronouncing our causes so freely in a media centric world. Is it no longer tailored to get the exact effect from the exact audience we want? Is it no longer important to tailor it?
The video jogged my memory back to a few months ago when I sat at the Rays stadium in St. Petersburg Florida, watching the baseball game from an eatery in the stadium. There I was, sitting with a friend and their family who didn’t know me very well, and between the game feed on the televisions came a commercial about childhood cancer. Now, I don’t mind these commercials, they air for good reasons. But what is uncomfortable is being one of those children and then having to sit there and listen to the reactions that come with the commercial.
The standard, “Oh that’s so sad, those poor children.”
The less likely shocker, “Oh well why do we need to help them anyways, there is a lot of bad things in this world.”
The vacant, “That kid looks weird.”
The joker who chooses to play along, “Look! I’m bald! I must have cancer, too.”
Now it may sound like these are made up responses, but I have heard them all, and I have heard worse. Sometimes, I’m not sure if it’s the sympathetic response or the comedic response which hits harder. To introduce myself now as a survivor would no more benefit me then it would cause a very awkward silence. So I look down, and close my mouth. There are sometimes piercing glares. But past that, saying something no more helps me then it would other children. All I can hope to do is cause change by example.
But I have to remember that my world is its own, and if you have never visited it, you probably couldn’t find it on the map. So for your viewing pleasure I have attached a video. If you comment, I ask you to tell me your first true reaction, and if it’s negative then look back on what your judgment is. Because all I sum it up to say, is that cancer is a fight and that makes me a warrior. Not a survivor, a warrior. Therefore, maybe it is a strength not a weakness. When you watch these commercials, instead of seeing patients and victims, see warriors.

First URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJXhhx_ksS4
Second URL:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTKyo-8TuyA
Third URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClgY6q4Ome0

One More MRI and I'll Stick To The Fridge

One of the things doctors and nurses forget to mention to you after you have been cleared of cancer for the first time, second time, fill in the number time, is that they will continue to make you report back every few months to do tests and scans that in turn will cause cancer.
You will be instructed to do many tests consisting of the same sort of process:
You walk in, are given a gown, and directed to a room. You are told to take off all your clothes and put on a beautiful, oversized, smock like print of ducks. From there, you walk barefoot to an open room hoping your butt is not hanging out of the smock, but if it is you hope it looks good and attracts the nice, handsome, rich, doctor. Even before hellos, you must sum up your sex life. And the usual response to, “Are you pregnant?” is not taken well when answered with, "I sure hope not!" From there you must say you are kidding and give a definite no. Or if yes, run away. But no is the preferred answer usually for both parties.
Then after the first test, comes the second one and the third one exactly like it. One must suck it up and do these tests over and over. Escaping is usually looked down upon.
Maintenance Patients ( those who had cancer and are trying to maintain the not cancer place they are at) have come to find that scan time is one of the best times to choose to resort back to the famed pajama pants that one had come to be best friends with during treatment. Why? Because you learn to wear the clothes that are easiest to take off over and over again many times throughout the day of scans. The best bet is usually drawstring pajama pants and t shirt. Many may call this the ‘bumming it’ look, but I call it the ‘Pro- Hooker’ look. Just like a hooker, cancer patients become good at taking off their clothes many times in one day and learn to find the clothes easiest to take off. Cancer patients don’t do buttons, snaps, or ties. No, we are professionals, it’s just one… two…. Velcro…. off!! Unless your night job is a hooker, this is probably the most times in one day that you will hear, “Take off your clothes.”
From the ‘pro hooker’ phase comes the time when you crawl, stuff, or shove your way into some machine and lay down. You fill your time by reading the warning labels on the machine, wall, bed post, etc. There you will find the bright part of a cancer patients day. The words on the machine that is supposed to check for your cancer warns, “This test may cause cancer.” But instead of worrying about getting Cancer from the tests, I figure give me a few more MRI’s which are just Magnetic Resonance Tests and I will stick to the fridge.