Breast Cancer Awareness Month

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. According to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure website, there will be an estimated 226,870 new cases of invasive breast cancer, 63,300 new cases of in situ breast cancer, and 39,510 breast cancer deaths in the United States in the year 2012. These numbers are frightening and we all know women (and possibly men) who have been affected. By including breast cancer awareness in our scrapbooks, we raise the awareness level of those who see our pages, including our children, our family, and the people who see the pages we post online.

Personal Experience

If you have a personal experience with breast cancer, either by having it yourself or through the struggle of a loved one, you may choose to create a scrapbook page sharing your thoughts. This very touching page was created by Mary Eason. She completed her breast cancer treatment almost four years ago, but only created this page with her thoughts recently.

As she describes her experience, she highlights the word "how" in pink, the color associated with breast cancer awareness. Her touching journaling reads as follows:

How do you comprehend the words "You have breast cancer"?  It's hard. When you hear those words you are overwhelmed with fear. It's hard to remember anything else you're told immediately following those words. All the questions you have come later....when you're nowhere near a doctor. How do you tell your husband, your mother, your children?  You tell your husband immediately. You dread telling your mom and your kids, especially your daughter. You put off telling them until you have a treatment plan figured out.  How will you manage to get through the months of grueling treatments?  You just do. You take it one day at a time. You learn to ask for help and depend on others when you have to. How do you deal with the uncertainty of the outcome?  You try not to think about it. You focus on what you can do today. It's when you've completed all the treatments and surgeries that you start to worry because you feel like you should be doing more to fight it.  How do you accept that reconstruction is not even an option?  No breast is better than dying. It wasn't difficult. How will this affect your children's emotional well being?  You answer all their questions as honestly as you can, assure them you're doing everything in your power to fight it, and let them know how they will be taken care of if you lose the fight. They DO need to know this. How do you move on?  You buy a prosthesis, watch your hair grow back, regain your physical strength and fill the remainder of your life, however long or short it may be, being with the people you love.

Mary was kind enough to share her personal thoughts and journaling with me and allow me to share it in this article. If you choose to create a layout with personal thoughts like this, it should also be a personal decision whether to share them online or to keep them private.

Personal Contributions

There are many ways to help those with breast cancer including activities to raise awareness, raising money, and personal donations. These generous acts should be celebrated and commemorated in our scrapbooks. This was particularly true for me when my son decided to donate his hair to an organization which makes wigs for women with breast cancer. Although he has had several older relatives lose their hair through breast cancer treatment, he has not seen them without hair. He chose to do this because it seemed to him like a good thing to do and we are very proud of him. I created a layout entitled "Mitzvah" which is the Jewish word for a good deed. I used a gear embellishment and boyish colors since I didn't think a seven-year-old boy would appreciate pink in his scrapbook.

Many of us use athletic pursuits, such as running, walking, or completing a triathlon, to raise money and awareness for breast cancer research. If you or someone you know accomplishes one of these athletic milestones, this is a great opportunity for a breast cancer awareness scrapbooking page. You may decide to create a page about the person in whose memory you were participating or on the athletic accomplishment itself.

As we mark Breast Cancer Awareness Month, think about how breast cancer has affected your life and the lives of those around you and how you might want to include it in your scrapbook pages.