Breast
cancer awareness
It’s October and breast-cancer
awareness month. Medical insurance companies use this opportunity to market dread-disease
cover, and breast-cancer support groups raise funds for well-meaning projects
that support women and their families in the clutches of cancer
treatment. Tree trunks are covered in pink material. Women wear pink ribbons.
But is this real or just a pretty cover-up
for a life-changing diagnosis? Does it really give hope to women facing endless
doctor’s visits, tests, mammograms and other invasive procedures where they
find themselves standing naked underneath stiff cotton hospital gowns, barefoot
and grinning bravely but secretly praying that it will soon all be over?
Can anything you read about breast
or any other cancer prepare you for surgery – the bright lights, alien men and
women all dressed in green, wearing masks and caps, discussing current events
as though you’re already anaesthetised and unconscious? Hard, cold metal
theatre-table, machines and trays of shining instruments like cutlery in a
catering kitchen?
You wonder how you will survive the
fog of pain that hurts everywhere, just everywhere, with the anaesthetist
smacking your face – albeit gently – but smacking it all the same to wake you
up. And then the long months of recovery, taking just one day at a time, trying
not to think about the bills, the children, your job that you’re neglecting and
people telling you not to worry!
And you ask yourself: when did this
all begin? How could it have happened to me? When will this nightmare end?
Are we (the medical profession)
telling women the truth about hormonal contraceptives and how they’re
increasing breast cancer risks? Do we just go along with what the
pharmaceutical companies are telling us about this wonder-drug that brought
about women’s-lib in the 60’s? Men who wanted a convenient contraceptive with
no-strings-attached to regular sex with women who are only fertile for a few
short days in her cycle – while men are fertile 24/7?
Higher levels of oestrogen and
progesterone stop ovulation, minimalize the endometrium (womb lining that will
nourish a fertilised egg) and thicken the mucous inside the cervix (mouth of
the womb). Together, these three put a stop to babies.
But wait. Oestrogen is carcinogenic.
This means that it’s potentially cancer-causing. Why? Because it stimulates
body cells to multiply a lot more quickly than they normally would. This only
happens to oestrogen-receptor cells – found in the breasts. Too much oestrogen
means a greater risk for a single breast cell to become cancerous. It usually
takes about 10 years before the lump is about 1cm – or when a woman becomes
aware of a lump.
And there’s more:
- Plastics mimic oestrogen
- Animals are fed hormones to make them grow faster or produce more milk
- Teenage girls are put onto contraceptives for their skin, or to prevent teenage pregnancy
- Older women are given hormones to side-step the symptoms of menopause
- Women are delaying or not getting pregnant or breastfeeding (these help to reduce breast-cancer risks)
- Overweight women store extra oestrogen in their fat cells
- Some hormonal contraceptives like the patch, injection and intra-uterine device last years, which means the body doesn’t get a break from synthetic hormones. This also increases her risk of infertility.
This October I’m telling women the
truth!
For more information google Angela Lanfranchi,
M.D. | New Feminism
