I read The Cookie Club the other day. Apparently it’s already been optioned as a movie so don’t bother reading it, just wait till it’s on the big screen. But there was an interesting statement in the book that got me thinking. The main character stated that one third of the middle-aged female characters had been touched by cancer in someway. Personally she had had a BCC.
I actually laughed. She’s classing herself as a cancer survivor because she had a BCC? I don’t think so. I’ve had two of the bloody things and I don’t class myself as cancer survivor. I saw my father lose his struggle against bowel and liver cancer, I know countless women who have had breast cancer, several who died. Because I live in Australia I know people who’ve had melanomas, but classing myself in the category of cancer survivor just seems plain wrong.
Sure a BCC (basal cell carcinoma) is a form of skin cancer. It’s hardly life threatening. If left untreated it will grow and erode bodily structures, but it doesn’t get into your blood stream, attach itself to your organs and cause death. Sure, left alone it may eat your nose off, but you’re hardly going to die are you? You mightn’t look great, but it’s hardly in the same category as breast, bowel and prostate cancer is it? Well no, but apparently there is a very low instance of dying from non- cancers (mostly SCCs) so perhaps I am being a little debonair in my attitude.
Now mind you this is only my point of view. And I largely think it’s because I’m an Australian, specifically a Queenslander, and nearly everyone I know has some sort of skin damage from the sun. Australian’s have the highest rate of skin cancers in the world. Melonama is the fourth most common type of cancer causing death and I don’t think any of us underestimate its danger. But BCCs and SCCs, they’re another matter altogether. Gosh if you don’t have one in your 40’s it’s probably because it just hasn’t been detected yet. Research suggests that two-thirds of Australians will eventually have a form of skin cancer, most likely BCC or SCC. It’s not a badge of honour, it’s just the effects of the Australian sun on white skins of European descent.
I asked my dermatologist about why I have BCCs when I practice good sun safety practices and she said it was simply because I grew up in the tropics, I’m very fair and I worked in a job that required me to be outside a lot–a lot like the rest of the Australian population. I didn’t even know I had them. My dermo found them. The first was a little spot, the size of a pin head on the side of my nose. A plastic surgeon removed it and I was cut down the full length of my nose. I had two black eyes and people thought my husband had taken to domestic violence. Little problem with a big solution.
My second BCC was on my leg and was removed by a laser. The treatment cost the earth but was classified as cosmetic so I got nothing back from Medicare or my health fund. I chose the laser because I was concerned about a scar on my leg that might be slow to heal. See even the Australian government thinks that BCCs are bullshit cancers. It won’t even support the treatment.
So poorer, scarred and wiser, I vigilantly visit my dermo every six months to keep the little buggers under surviellance. But cancer survivor, I think not. Cancer survivors fight much bigger battles than I have ever done. I wouldn’t be able to stand next to a woman who had come out of a breast cancer fight, look her in the eye and say, yes, I’ve survived cancer too.
But maybe our Cookie Club character was jumping on the bandwagon. Maybe she didn’t want her efforts to be undervalued. Not sure what the motivation is here. I just know that I am a person who always needs to slip, slop, slap every day. I’m not a cancer survivor–they’re made of much tougher stuff than me and I never want to be part of the club. Image
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