Before You Donate
Think very seriously before donating to any breastcancer organization, or fundraising program until you read their Annual Report to see who their top contributors are, and if they have a product that appears frequently in the message the organization sends to the public. That would be unethical and its illegal. The same applies to a request that the public buys products, but does not receive a "donor receipt" for tax-deductible purpose. Read any and all food labels that breastcancer "non-profits" are promoting to raise money. Some organizations tell the public to help them raise money by asking you to visit their websites, but that only gives them "hits" to increase their sponsors.
Another tip, "signing" an online Petition is not acceptable, so don't fall for such antics. An ethical non-profit, or professional will not request your visit to their website, nor use "cookies" placed on your computer when you visit their site.
Purchase the Breastcancer Postage Stamp, the Post Office will always give you your charitable deduction receipt. Its a valid form of fund raising.
Most of us begin to fight at the moment of diagnosis—when the rest of your existence virtually stops. It may occupy the center of your existence for a long, long time. Survivors and others family caretakers have told me that suddenly cancer takes over their lives—its treatment, the fast changes in your life, the 'odds,' the adjustments, costs, concerns about insurance, and how other view their coping. Everyone is different.We deny, we grieve, we become angry, irritable, distracted, depressed, hungry, not hungry, sleep too much, not enough, think of running away, but at some point we stop oppressing and we do fight. It took me five months before I could feel anger toward the two physicians who missed this on my last two annual mammograms—I caught the most recent one by asking for a second reading. But for five months, during which I was in pain, sick, having surgery, traveling for second and third opinions, and enduring chemotherapy, the fight took precedence, thank goodness, because it kept the gripping fear from my "door," and moved depression away from me, by fighting for my own life.
What is this fight? I'm not sure. In fact, I'm not sure it's a fight against cancer. It may be a fight to keep oneself stabilized long enough to find competent people to help you and then fight to keep centered long enough to get the battle underway. It is a fight for the core of your very existence, even if you are not sure what that is you know when its being violated.For me, it definitely included finding a way to think straight, to keep fear down, and think as rationally as I could. I do know part of my response was grief. I felt sad about my body being assaulted without my consent. For me, too, I vividly recalled my young siblings deaths from cancer before they were 25 years old. I'm not sure it matters why we react, just that we do. One thing I do know, we need psychological help during this time, and all too often that aspect is totally ignored. Now there is a field called oncological psychotherapy, and I'm very pleased. These psychiatrists are wonders, and deserve a lot of praise, along with the wonderful oncologists like I found for myself. Do seek out psychiatric help. Had I know how valuable it would have been for me, that would have been my second phone call, after calling the National Cancer Institute's pathology chairman.
With a seasoned psychiatrist, you have a right to feel the way you do, s/he condones and reinforces your feelings, and concerns, and you learn about yourself—that person you've always know was inside your skin. This is when you learn that the outer you isn't one tenth the value of your true self, you learn that you are still you, without breasts, perhaps, without hair, and you are able to speak out to doctors on your own behalf, where so many women have been socialized to refrain from doing. Balderdash! If your doctors don't know "where" you are, they certainly cannot help you completely, and if they don't like what you have to say, its time to find that out, and find another replacement for their "seat" on your team (ignore this font change--I cannot figure out how to fix it--LOL).
I'm a strategic planner, and help organizations decided to commit to long-range planning, and conduct seminars to facilitate their 3-5 year plans, and to implement them (quantitative, timelines, point people, etc). So, quite naturally I have goals myself, and quantify my objectives. When my clients would have a management crisis and would call and say "Well, what about the plan, such and such an objective is due, but . . . " I'd always advise them to "just take the next step that will get you closest to fixing your crisis, first, then we'll go back to the Plan."So, I decided this was a crisis and I had to find what the next step would be for me to achieve the greatest potential for health and recovery. Everything else had to take a back seat: finances, job, friends, commitments, everything, even if I had to end up running out of funds, and becoming a county patient. It did not matter to me at all. Only my life, right then.
revised 12/05/2005