Wordless Wednesday, HAWMC
Posted: April 3, 2013 Filed under: breast cancer | Tags: breast cancer and young women, David Jay photography, HAWMC, psychological effects of breast cancer, The SCAR Project, WEGO Health 12 CommentsDay 3 of the Health Activist Writer’s Month Challenge:
“Wordless Wednesday. Post a picture that symbolizes your condition and your experiences.”
My first thought was of the many powerful images in David Jay’s The Scar Project. I’ve written about this amazing body of work here and here. The photographs are raw and real, just like cancer itself.
David Jay Photography
Hacked off
Posted: March 28, 2013 Filed under: breast cancer, cancer fatigue | Tags: Barbara Ehrenreich, David Jay photography, ER positive breast cancer, hormone suppression, New York Times Well blog, Susan Gubar, The SCAR Project, young women and breast cancer 10 CommentsSusan Gubar has done it again. She’s written another fantastic post for The New York Times‘s Well blog. This one is about The Scar Project, which is near and dear to my heart. Perhaps it’s a theme this week: scars, invisible and visible, and how we cancerchicks live with them for the rest of our lives. The women pictured in The Scar Project will have a long, long time to figure out how to live with those scars, as they are all under the age of 40.
Says Gubar of the young women portrayed: “The youthfulness of David Jay’s subjects wrenches me. Unlike them, I had a good span of my adult life — more than 60 years — before treatment. Their bodies stopped being their own too soon. Did their selves also stop being their own too soon? Cancer scars are physical mutilations of and on the body; but, more than that, cancer scars the psyche, the soul, the spirit. The ‘me’ before cancer is not the ‘me’ after cancer. Nor can these identities always be sutured.”
Yes, Susan Gubar, I think it’s safe to say that our bodies and our selves did indeed stop being their own too soon. I was 40 when I was diagnosed, which is old by The Scar Project standards, but I can say with certainty that it totally sucks to have been denied a good span of my adult life before cancer . It’s a drag. Because estrogen feeds my cancer, and many other varieties of breast cancer, I had to shut off the supply of that vital hormone. Being forcefully fast-forwarded into menopause also sucks. Aging on an unnatural timeframe, well ahead of my peers, does too. Having to face mortality decades in advance extracts a heavy toll on us cancerchicks. We want to live long, healthy normal lives; we want to see our children grow up. We hope that cancer doesn’t have other plans for us. Gubar touches on this, too, writing this about the young women portrayed in The Scar Project photos: “The ones that grip me stare at the photographer — at me — defiant. They want to live. I want them to live. Like Barbara Ehrenreich, David Jay seeks to unsettle a ‘public anesthetized by pink ribbons and fluffy teddy bears.’” Unsettle away, Mr Jay.
Gubar writes that “David Jay’s portraits contain images of women whose bared breasts look crumpled, concave, synthetic, reconstructed without or with reconfigured nipples, stitched horizontally or vertically or at an acute angle, lumpy, lopsided, wounded, or hacked off. Bravery resides there, beauty elsewhere.”
Wounded. Hacked off. Those descriptions apply both to my body and my soul. My body is wounded, and like my cancer-ridden breasts, I am hacked off. That this disease happens. That it takes so much from those who are so young. That it steals so much beauty, both internal and external. That the scars that remain are so upsetting, so unsettling. That this disease robs us of our youthfulness and our peace of mind. That the cancer experience changes who we are, forever, and not always in ways that are good or positive.
Gubar says that before cancer, she may have been perceived as being “ungrateful for an intact body, taking for granted organs that functioned normally, arrogant about the boons of health, ignorant of the preciousness of life.” As the old saying goes, we don’t know what we’ve got til its gone, and so too it is with cancer. Pre-cancer, I didn’t think about an intact body, fully functional organs, the boons of health and the preciousness of life the way I do now. While there are days I’m grateful to be up and about and not confined to a hospital bed or tethered to an IV pole, there are many more days in which I’m hacked off. While I take notice of air filling my lungs and appreciate my stamina at the gym, that appreciation is tempered by sadness at what I had to go through. While I am happy that I’m capable of achieving strength and fitness again after the cancer, surgeries, infection, and treatment took their pound of flesh (literally), I’m pissed that my triumph is bested by the omnipresent fear of recurrence.
I can identify with Gubar 100 percent when she says, “I remember the ‘me’ before cancer nostalgically. My earlier self could … connect with family and friends spontaneously and lavishly. At times I visualize the diagnosis as a gun aimed at a flying bird — pitched down from the sky in an instant to lie fluttering on the ground.”
Bang!
translations.deviantart.com
Susan Gubar ends her beautiful article by pointing out that “the young women in The Scar Project were gunned down while just trying their wings. With courage, the wounded survivors bear invisible scar tissue beneath the physical scars of cancer: the haunting lost person each might have become, had it not been for the disease. They live, but not the lives they would have led.”
Brace yourself for a rant
Posted: March 6, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: breast reconstruction, Fit for the Cure, Nancy's Point, Planned Parenthood, Serena Williams, Susan G Komen for the Cure, The SCAR Project, Wacoal 31 CommentsIt’s been a while since I’ve gone all Serena Williams on a company or organization. Now that the Komen-Planned Parenthood debacle has died down, I’m in need of a new reason to rant.
Lo and behold, as I browsed the Sunday paper, a new rant fell right into my lap.
An ad for Dillard’s titled FI{gh}T FOR THE CURE has me seeing red, not pink.
“Help Wacoal KNOCKOUT breast cancer at a Fit for the Cure event,” reads the ad. It’s a simple idea: the bra maker will donate $2 for every woman who comes to the store to be fitted for a new bra during the event. And for every bra purchased, an additional $2 will be donated.
I’m all for donating to good causes, and I’m all for shopping. But I have 2 problems with this Wacoal campaign. First, the money is being donated to Komen “for breast cancer research and community outreach programs.” Come on, Wacoal — donate for something that will actually make a difference. We’ve all seen the pathetic Komen numbers on just how much (or how little) of these donations go toward research. Research that could potentially find a cure. As in Susan G. Komen FOR THE CURE. Or research that could potentially KNOCKOUT breast cancer, as in the Wacoal FI{gh}T FOR THE CURE slogan so tantalizingly states. Wacoal has donated $2.5 million to Komen from its FI[gh}T for the Cure events. Assuming that Komen continues on its current path, it will use 19 percent of that $2.5 mil for research. I’m no expert on medical research, but based on my own experience with my medical bills, I’m guessing $475,000 won’t go very far toward finding a cure.
Wacoal has a line of underthings called B.Tempted. Looks to me like it is aimed at young, beautiful women who like a little pizzazz under their shirts.
btempted.wacoal-america.com
Nothing wrong with that, but when Wacoal uses its B.Tempted line to promote supposed good-works for my disease, then there’s something wrong. My message to the B.Tempted models and consumers is this: enjoy those perfectly round, nicely supported breasts now, because if you’re unlucky enough to be among the one in eight women diagnosed with breast cancer, you’ll never see the likes of those again. No, instead you’ll be facing something that looks like this:
The SCAR Project
Oh but don’t worry, that flat chest etched with red, raised, painful scars can be temporary. You won’t have to deal with the indignity of a being flat as a board in our breast-obsessed culture for long. Fleeting will be your struggle to find a bra that fits (whatcha doing about this problem, Wacoal?). Before long you’ll no longer spend anguished moments in your closet and countless dollars in your quest to find something to wear that doesn’t advertise your deficiency. If you opt to undergo even more surgeries to have reconstruction, that is. Then you might be facing something that looks like this:
The SCAR Project
There we go. All better now.
My second problem lies in the images Wacoal — and by default, Dillard’s — uses to promote the FI{gh}T FOR THE CURE. The ad in my Sunday paper was black and white, so not as eye-catching as the others, and it was a little less in-your-face overly sexualized.
A quick googleimages search, however, turned up some disturbing stuff:
One in eight women in the United States will be diagnosed with breast cancer. Some 40,000 women in the Unites States will die from this disease this year alone. Some men will, too. How many of the one in eight can identify with the sirens in the Wacoal ads? How many of the 40,000 would be happy about and grateful for this type of campaign?
I am one of the one in eight, and I can do neither. I don’t identify with these models, and I think this type of advertising is shameful. It appeals to the lowest common denominator, and Wacoal should be ashamed.
Questions abound.
My blog friend Nancy at Nancy’s Point has asked some of these same questions:
“What other disease has the afflicted body part(s) displayed on articles of clothing with silly, even degrading commentary?
When did it become more about saving breasts than about cancer and saving lives?
Have we lost sight of what the original intent of all this awareness was?
Has breast cancer awareness merely morphed into a big business?
Is breast cancer being used? Are women being used? I think they are.
How did we let this happen? How did WOMEN let this happen?”
I’ll tell you how women let this happen: by going along with things like Fi[gh]t for the Cure. By seeing glossy, photoshopped images of young, thin, sexy women in frilly & lacy bras and somehow conflating that with philanthropy. By allowing companies like Wacoal to dictate the face of breast cancer.
Could Wacoal not get the message across by using a less-racy, less-sexualized image? How about something like this? 
She’s young, strong, fit, and wearing pink. Looks to me like she could KNOCKOUT breast cancer. There’s a hint of cleavage, a peek into the area of our discontent, without being so in-your-face. Why isn’t that enough? Would the public not be swayed by the campaign without the sizzle?
Giuliana Rancic
Posted: December 15, 2011 Filed under: breast cancer, cancer fatigue | Tags: bilateral mastectomy, breast cancer and young women, David Jay, Guiliana Rancic, JP drains, People magazine, postaday2011, The SCAR Project, young women and breast cancer 19 CommentsI wasn’t planning on writing about Giuliana Rancic’s breast cancer diagnosis in October or her decision to have a double lumpectomy or her announcement that her double lumpectomy has morphed into a double mastectomy. Much has been written about it, and she’s done the talk-show circuit, and I didn’t feel the need to comment on the latest celeb to begin a cancer “journey.” However, the more I read about her story, the more compelled I am to comment.
First, when her cover issue of People magazine hit the newsstands, it nearly caused me to have a heart attack. I was mindlessly unloading my loot from my shopping cart and putting it on the conveyor belt when I caught a glimpse of this:
I didn’t notice the photo or her name, but was drawn in by the bold yellow headline and wondered, who’s that and what’s she got that is serious enough that she has to fight for her life??? Imagine my shock when I read the fine print and realized that it’s Giuliana Rancic and she’s got what I had — breast cancer. After the shock wore off, I thought I’d better see how serious her diagnosis is; after all, if she’s fighting for her life, it must be bad. I’m thinking stage 4 with mets everywhere.
The article in People, titled “The Fight of My Life,” speaks of her “devastating cancer diagnosis.” I’m thinking this is really bad.
As I read on, though, I learned that her BC was caught early and had not spread.
Whew!
So does this mean that early-stage, non-metastatic BC qualifies one to be deemed “fighting for one’s life”? If that’s the case, what does that mean for women whose BC is not early stage and has spread?
This kind of overwrought journalism really bugs me. I know that People has to sell mags, but good grief, how about a little truth in advertising? The cover story of “I’M FIGHTING FOR MY LIFE” in big, bold letters nearly caused me to stroke out, and left me thinking I really underplayed my BC story. My cancer was in both breasts, not just one, and I never declared that I was fighting for my life. I’m thinking I seriously mishandled this.
I’m certainly not one to kick a sister when she’s down. That’s not my intent at all. I wish her the best; I truly do. Cancer is a terrible thing, no matter what age or what stage one is when diagnosed, and I certainly don’t mean to give Rancic grief — she’s enduring enough of that as is. However, I do wonder about some of the comments she’s made. I was hoping they were taken out of context, but ….
She said that the double lumpectomy didn’t get all the cancer so she was moving forward with a bilateral mastectomy, and I totally support her saying that deciding to have a mastectomy “was not an easy decision but it was the best decision for me.” Agreed. But when she went on to say “Not only can it [mastectomy] save your life, but you can come out feeling healthier and with a positive self-image”
Really?
Ladies, raise your hand if your bilateral mastectomy left you feeling healthier and with a positive self-image.
Come on, show of hands.
Anyone? Anyone?
On The Wendy Williams Show the other day, Rancic spoke openly about her surgery and how she thinks it will affect her: “Listen, I love my girls, but I’m gonna feel more like a woman when this is all done.”
“I’ll be able to say that I survived something major and it’s made me stronger. I will be a better woman for it.”
I hope she’s not setting herself up for a very big, very traumatic fall.
Rancic went on to say that “scars are beautiful. I think scars tell a story.”
Yep, there’s a story there all right. Millions of women can attest to that. There is most definitely a story there. Hopefully not a horror story.
I wonder if she’s seen any images from The SCAR Project. I was blown away by photographer David Jay’s shots the first time I saw them, and receiving The SCAR Project book is one of the best gifts ever (thank you, Trevor). The women are beautiful, and their strength and kick-assed-ness is beautiful. The scars, not so much.
thescarproject.org
thescarproject.org
thescarproject.org
thescarproject.org
Giuliana Rancic speculated of her breasts after reconstruction: “They might come out looking even hotter. You gotta have fun with this. We find the humor in everything. Bill helped pick ’em out. I’m like, ‘Bill, that big? Really?'”
They might come out looking even hotter.
I’m gonna have to linger on that idea for a minute.
And when I’m done, I will contemplate the damage that occurs when people say things that imply that facing breast cancer is a tidy event that requires surgery and treatment then fast-forward on to the happily ever after. While the happily ever after certainly can, and does, happen, I think it’s misleading to say that BC is something you deal with and move on. The idea that after cancer comes transcendence is flawed. The idea that all you have to do is wrap a big pink ribbon around a cancer battle is flawed. The idea that everyone comes away from breast cancer a better, stronger person is flawed. It’s not that easy, it’s certainly not pretty, and it doesn’t always result in the kind of change you would consider positive.
In speaking of Rancic’s mastectomy, her husband Bill said, “Our goal is to be done with this by Christmastime and not look back. We’re taking the rear view mirror off the car and we’re not looking back, because we’re going to be done.” Well, considering she had the surgery two days ago, and is still in the hospital, I hope she’s “done” by Christmastime. It’s good to have goals.
Maybe the whole cancer thing is still too fresh for me, too raw, but the idea of not looking back is weird and foreign and borderline incomprehensible. Maybe there’s a pair of magic “don’t look back” glasses that gets passed out upon diagnosis, and I missed out on that. I can see how that might happen as I’m always in a hurry and might have scooted out of Dr D’s office before anyone had a chance to give me the “don’t look back” glasses. Or perhaps I was supposed to get them from my oncologist, but was so freaked out by the fact that I have an oncologist that I ran out of his office before I got the magic glasses. Maybe Giuliana got her glasses in advance; one of the perks of being a celeb and having cancer. Personally, I don’t know how one can experience a cancer “journey” and not look back. I hope it works out for her.
If any of y’all are going to be in Times Square for New Year’s Eve, look out for Giuliana. And be sure you don’t bump into her. Those mastectomy scars and JP drain holes take a while to heal.
National Cancer Survivors Day
Posted: June 5, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: breast cancer, cancer battle, cancer diagnosis, Deborah Lattimore, funny cakes, funny t-shirts, Lifetime for Women, loss, mastectomy, National Cancer Survivors Day, NCSD, new boobs, post-mastectomy, reconstruction, recovery, smiley face, survivor, The SCAR Project 9 CommentsWell, we have Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, Grandparents’ Day, and even Bosses’ Day for pete’s sake, so why not Cancer Survivors Day? Makes perfect sense, as there are millions of us around the world. I do wonder, though, why there’s no apostrophe in the title. I double-checked it on the NCSD website and sure enough, no apostrophe.
It’s today, by the way — I feel like I should wear a shirt that says “Kiss Me, I Survived
Cancer” but I’m not really the kissy type. I guess I could wear my “cupcakes” t-shirt, which I love, but then it seems like my “cupcakes” get the credit for kicking cancer to the curb when really, they were the culprit in the first place. Without them, I never would have had breast cancer, so I’m not giving them the credit for having survived it. I will wear it to the gym, though, because I love the look on people’s faces as they read it, then do a not-so-subtle double-take at my chest.
So what is National Cancer Survivors Day all about, anyway? Probably something a little more meaningful than wearing a snarky t-shirt and giggling to myself as the shockwaves from said shirt ripple through the gym. According to the NCSD website,
“National Cancer Survivors Day® is an annual, treasured worldwide Celebration of Life that is held in hundreds of communities throughout the United States, Canada, and other participating countries. Participants unite in a symbolic event to show the world that life after a cancer diagnosis can be meaningful and productive.”
Well, I’m certainly proud to be part of an annual, treasured worldwide celebration of life. Although I think I missed the parade. Considering how many people are affected by cancer, you’d think this day would get a bit more press. There’s probably a Lifetime for Women movie about it and I missed that too.
As usual, I have lots of questions about this annual, treasured worldwide celebration of life. Who qualifies as a survivor? And when does survivorship begin? What time was the parade? The National Cancer Survivors Day Foundation defines a “survivor” as anyone living with a history of cancer – from the moment of diagnosis through the remainder of life. I think it’s perhaps a bit more personal than that. I also think it’s more than just surviving cancer. I also survived a nasty infection and a nearly year-long regime of some pretty bad-ass antibiotics. I survived a complicated and intense reconstruction process, and I survived yet another long, hard recovery.
I considered myself a survivor as soon as my mastectomy was over. Surgically removing the tumors, and thereby the cancer, from my body was when my status changed from “regular person” to “survivor.” So for me, I became a survivor in the late afternoon of May 13, 2010. Although I certainly didn’t feel like much of a survivor at the time, bandaged and battered, stitched up and sore. Moving my body at all was a seemingly unattainable feat, and raising my arms high enough to put chap stick on my lips was definitely unattainable. I wasn’t able to slick my own lips for a day or so.
At the time, I had no concept of what a double mastectomy truly meant or looked like. So focused was I on ridding the cancer that I gave zero thought to the aftereffects of the surgery. Even now, in the hazy afterglow of just one year’s time, I struggle to remember exactly what I looked like after that first surgery. In fact, when Trevor gave me The SCAR Project book for my birthday a few days ago, I looked at the portraits of mastectomied women and asked, were my scars vertical or horizontal? For a brief moment, I couldn’t remember. (They were vertical, BTW.)
Deborah Lattimore
That’s why I’m so grateful for things like The SCAR Project and for women like Deborah Lattimore. Like the women who were photographed for The SCAR Project, Deborah Lattimore didn’t want to forget what she looked like after being mastectomied. This defines a survivor, IMHO: facing a shitty situation with not just courage but with moxie. Reading Deborah’s blog, I’m so impressed and moved and in awe of her take-no-prisoners attitude. I immediately felt a kinship with her as I read what she wrote about her post-cancer silhouette soon after her bilateral mastectomy: “my body is still ‘re-architecturalizing’ and will for the coming year. eventually my chest will be completely flat and the scars will be an even line. i really love my skinny small body!” Cheers to Deborah on this annual, treasured worldwide celebration of life. Wish I could tell her happy National Cancer Survivors Day to her face, and to bask in the supreme power of a strong, confident, self-assured woman who tells cancer to bugger off then shows the world the true face of a survivor. No padded bras, no prostheses here. Not that there’s anything wrong with padded bras or cutlets. How we face the world post-mastectomy is an immensely personal decision, and I in no way want to imply judgement on how any woman makes that decision. For me personally, I applaud women like Deborah who celebrate their mastectomied bodies and view them as a badge of honor. In our breast-obsessed culture, this is no easy thing.
So happy National Cancer Survivors to everyone. I’m thinking we should all have cake. 
What kind of cake is appropriate for NCSD? Something festive, for sure (you know how I love celebrations). This one is nice:
Love the colors, but the pink butterfly kinda creeps me out.
Maybe this one, then:
Nah, I’m not much of a cat person, and it’s not a birthday cake I’m after, although I do love the idea of the cat eating a fish-shaped cake. Maybe we survivors should eat a tumor-shaped cake. Ewww, gross. Never mind.
Ok, so something breast-cancer related:
Or not. Definitely not.
This one is pretty, and the lemon filling looks yummy:
This one is hilarious, although not appropriate for the annual, treasured worldwide celebration of life:
Maybe something from this bakery:
Surely they’d have just the right kind of cake for the annual, treasured worldwide celebration of life. Something like this, perhaps?
The SCAR Project
Posted: May 19, 2011 Filed under: breast cancer, cancer fatigue, infection, Surgery | Tags: "just write", Barbara Delinsky, breast cancer, cancer battle, cancer diagnosis, David Jay photographer, infectious disease, Nancy K Brinker, new boobs, pink ribbons, plastic surgery, post-mastectomy, Promise Me book, Race for the Cure, reconstruction, recovery, survivor, Susan G Komen, The SCAR Project, Uplift, Wordpress, young cancer patients 20 Comments
duggal.com
Listen up, people: this is really important.
If you’re not familiar with The SCAR Project, I am happy to introduce you. I’ll be honest: there are some photos that may disturb you, because the photos show “large-scale portraits of young breast cancer survivors,” and present a “raw, unflinching face of early onset breast cancer while paying tribute to the courage and spirit of so many brave young women,” according to the project’s website. While the photos are indeed raw and unflinching themselves, I challenge you to man up and look at them anyway. They’re very tastefully done, no train-wreck gore or gratuitously scary stuff. Get past the cover model who is visibly pregnant and sporting a single-mastectomy scar on her chest. Her belly is beautiful, as it contains a newly forming life, and her scar is a badge of honor.
The project’s acronym stands for “Surviving Cancer. Absolute Reality.”
I like that little double entendre. Well, let’s be honest: I like most double entendres, but this one in particular speaks to me. As does the project’s media slogan: “Breast Cancer Is Not a Pink Ribbon.”
And how.
one of the many "pink ribbon" cards I've received
I’m all for the pink-it-up attitude that the Susan G Komen for the Cure and other organizations espouse. While I think it’s a little weird to see the pink ribbon and “awareness campaign” on products ranging from golf balls to toilet paper and all parts in between, and while I question how much all this awareness really does to actually fight the dreaded disease, I am grateful that Suzy Goodman Komen was the kind of woman who wanted to make a difference, even though she would not be a survivor. Because of her and her family, most notably her sister Nancy G. Brinker, breast cancer went from a shameful secret shrouded in secrecy to the glamour disease du jour.
I’m not interested in getting into the debate in the BC community over how much good the Komen organization has actually done. I completely understand the frustration felt by women with Stage IV BC over the lack of research done on their end of this vicious disease. According to Brinker’s book, Promise Me, the Komen organization has contributed some $1.5 billion to research and community programs, but it seems that precious little reaches the metastatic BC demographic. I understand, and I struggle to see the connection between awareness and finding a cure. Regardless of funds and allocation, however, I’m grateful that in the 25+ years that Komen has been around, the global breast cancer movement has worked to eradicate the shame that used to accompany a BC diagnosis. The SCAR Project is following suit.
As I’ve mentioned before, Bestselling author Barbara Delinsky also lost a loved one to BC. Delinsky was 8 years old when her mom died from BC, yet according to her book Uplift, she was in her teens before she learned that her mom had breast cancer, and it was years before her dad could say cancer, and even longer before he could say breast.
One of the women featured in Uplift, Elinor Farber, lost her mom to BC, too, and said when her mom was diagnosed 45 years ago, there were no mammograms, and mastectomies were just short of a butchering. Farber reports that her mom lived more than 30 years after her surgery, but never once spoke of her condition. “Mom endured everything without the support of friends and neighbors, who were not told. My sister and I were both told of my mom’s condition in hushed tones, and we were sworn to secrecy.”
We’ve come a long way.
But not until The SCAR Project have people been forced to see–I mean really see–the impact of breast cancer.
The project focuses on women aged 18 to 35, a demographic in the breast cancer community that is not well represented. Although it’s estimated that more than 100,00 women younger than 40 will be diagnosed with BC this year, and although BC is the #1 cause of death of women aged 18 to 40, the younger members of the pink ribbon club don’t get a lot of press.
When I was diagnosed last April at the tender young age of 40, I quickly learned just how little press we young-uns get. All of the literature I received from my darling breast surgeon featured grey-haired grannies. Not a single image in any literature showed anyone within 20 years of my age. My darling breast surgeon, who is younger than me, agreed that the lit needs a major overhaul, and she teased me about being the one to get the ball rolling. Sure thing. Now that I’m finally off the antibiotics and over the post-mastectomy infection, I’m on it.
Sadly, I’m too old for The SCAR Project; otherwise, I would sign up right this second to be a SCAR model. Well, not right this second but after living in the gym for several months and eating nothing but salad. No dressing. Kidding. After countless doctor visits and multiple hospital stays, I’ve long shed any modesty about disrobing, and I’ve been known to show my scars in all their glory to anyone who asks. The nurses in my various doctors’ offices don’t even offer me the paper gown anymore, because they know I won’t use it. Save a tree, people; I’m over it. In fact, I may contact photographer David Jay and tell him I’m overage but have an abundance of scars. Way more than the women on the SCAR website. No that it’s a contest or anything.
dailymaverick,.com
Like Komen, the initial goal of The SCAR Project was to raise awareness and money. But it became so much more. Jay explains that he was not prepared for something so beautiful:
“For these young women, having their portrait taken seems to represent their personal victory over this terrifying disease. It helps them reclaim their sexuality, identity, and power after having been robbed of such an important part of it. Through these simple pictures, they seem to gain some acceptance of what has happened to them, and the strength to move forward with pride.”
Yeah! Go girls! This model from The SCAR Project looks like the epitome of a fierce survivor. While no doubt she’s battle-weary and has seen things and faced trials she never thought possible, the mere fact that she participated in The SCAR Project tells me that she is indeed moving forward with pride.
lipmag.com
I’m not quite there yet, personally, with reclaiming all that has been lost to my cancer, but after seeing the women in The SCAR Project, I’m a whole lot closer.
The Pink Underbelly 