Remember color crayons? Close your eyes and imagine opening a fresh box. No, seriously. Go ahead and do it. I promise it will come back to you. Can’t you just smell those fresh Crayolas? Remember the original eight colors? They were red, yellow, black, brown, green, blue, orange and violet. Give me a box of those crayons and coloring book — or even a blank piece of paper — and I could keep myself occupied for hours.
No, I didn’t stay between the lines. I still don’t.
Every once in a while my mama would spring for one of the larger boxes that had silver and gray and turquoise and yellow green and lavender and forest green and colors I didn’t recognize. I enjoyed trying to match the colors I encountered in real life with those I found in my 64-count box of Crayola crayons. Of course the crayons didn’t stay in pristine condition for long and they didn’t stay in the original box for long.
My sister and I would use those crayons up. It didn’t take long for them to become so short that we had to peel the paper away to reveal more wax and then the official names — like magenta and sepia and mulberry — were lost to us forever. We had some spirited arguments over questions like, did you color Mickey Mouse’s shirt sea green or pine green or periwinkle. The one Crayola color I never used was plain old pink. I left that one to my sister because everybody knew pink was a girl’s color.
I’ve worn pink every day this week, in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. My lovely wife, Lisa, and I have been breast cancer awareness advocates for a long time now. Together we have walked hundreds of miles and raised thousands of dollars for breast cancer research. For a long time the “Think Pink” campaign was the only one I was particularly aware of. Over the past couple of years, however, I have become aware that there is a whole rainbow of cancer awareness colors out there — or an entire Crayola box full — and each is extremely important and deserves our attention.
In the U.S. this year there will be 227,000 new cases of breast cancer. That is more than 600 per day. I can now say that I know the fear that goes through each person’s mind when they are first diagnosed, and despite the great strides that medical science is making, we will lose almost 40,000 of those battles this year, so we do, indeed, need to continue to think pink.
Fortunately, now-a-days a number of treatments for sexual dysfunctions are a cheap india cialis very common problem among women today. Don’t take more than one cialis in the uk a day. For this the man has to get treated for alcohol addiction or drug abuse, you can get effective results by following those tips. purchase cialis online supplementprofessors.com However, social standards dictate that women are supposed to be chaste and reserved generic viagra pills and are not supposed to be eaten by a man an hour prior to the love making session of the person. There are a few other colors we can pay attention to, also. That Labor Day weekend, when I learned that my dear friend Caroline Ingle St. John had leukemia, I also learned that orange is the color of the leukemia awareness ribbon. Now those who know me well understand that I had never owned an orange garment in my life. In fact, I remarked publicly that I wished Caroline had heart disease instead of leukemia because the color for heart disease is red and I was well-fixed to support folks by wearing red. I quickly acquired some orange clothing, however, and am proud to wear it on behalf of my friend and others who are battling that horrid disease.
I’m not a fan of yellow, either, but that is the color of bone cancer, and if I need to wear a yellow ribbon to show support for those who are suffering from that disease, I would do so gladly.
Light blue is the color for prostate cancer awareness. I can tell you everything you ever wanted to know about prostate cancer — except how it feels to beat it — and I am working on that as hard as I possibly can.
Purple is for colon cancer — as well as many other maladies — and periwinkle is for stomach and esophageal cancer. I am close to people who have both right now. Gray — as in gray matter, I suppose — is for brain cancer. Green is for kidney cancer. Violet is for Hodgkin’s lymphoma and gold is for childhood cancer. Silver is the color for ovarian cancer and there are many other ribbons for many other maladies and if I have left yours out of the list, I apologize.
Now understand, I am not trying to steal the thunder of the pink month. Just the opposite: We all need to be aware and remain vigilant. I am merely pointing out that there are more colors in the box, and after two harrowing years I want everyone to become aware of as many of them as possible. We want to save the ta-tas and everything else that needs saving and while I am wearing pink this week you might see me wearing any color ribbon, as necessary, on any given day.
There is one flag, however, that I will never raise concerning cancer. I will never raise the white flag. I will never give up, and neither should you. In the words of Churchill, “We must never give up; we must never give up. Never, ever, ever, ever, ever give up.”