Surviving the relay

It gets harder and harder to stomach this time of year when the American Cancer Society gears up for its main fundraising events. Yes, I got sucked into being a poster girl for the Relay, marching around the track to applause and teary-eyed faces, attending the dinner where we received party favors and the special T-shirts marking us as "SURVIVORs." I don't think I can ever do it again. Besides, where can you really wear that shirt?

Nowadays, I see red when a pink ribbon crosses my field of vision. All I can think of is greed and how the capitalists prey on sympathy (for people who do indeed deserve it) so that compassionate people will buy their products. And the product they are selling could be a bloated organization of high-salaried administrators raking in your donations, or mammograms, or a hospital that depends on its high-profile Women's Center to make a profit, or maybe just a cellphone or lipstick or a box of macaroni and cheese. It's just a public relations/ advertising campaign to them, whether they are using the word Green or the color pink.

They are using images and stories of people who have suffered to get caring folks to hand over their money. Will the poor cancer patients themselves ever see a dime of that money? Not likely, statistically speaking. Charity Navigator gives the American Cancer Society only one out of four stars for efficiency, or how well it spends your money on what you think it is spending it on. During the two six-month periods when I was being treated the only thing I ever got from the cancer society was a makeover. Yes, they have a "look good [so your friends can] feel better" class. More on that another day.

I will say that the Relay for Life does provide family members of cancer patients with a way to feel like they can make a difference, and a way to memorialize those who have died and to tell the ones who haven't that they love them.

Survivors didn't do anything worth cheering for. We just haven't died yet, that's all. Cancer is bad, but so are many other diseases. People feel helpless in the face of disease and death, so they buy the pink ribbons. Do it if it makes you feel better, but wearing a pink ribbon won't do anything to get companies to stop using chemicals that cause cancer, and the drug companies will keep researching profitable chemo drugs without your donation.

If you want to tell a person with cancer that you love them, don't let the ribbon do your talking for you.