Although I have never experienced it personally, I recently have a personal relationship to breast cancer. My aunt, who happens to be a second mother to me, is over coming this hurdle. Breast cancer is something that is very real for not just the women who suffer from it, but the loved ones around them as well.

Rose Kushner discovered her cancer in a time when knowledge of breast cancer was still limited. The media didn’t discuss the hardships of what it was like to live life with your illness hanging from your chest. Instead of dealing with her cancer in a private matter, she was the type of woman to use her illness as the capsule to educate others on what it is like to have breast cancer and the options that can be taken to deal with it. She turned breast cancer into a social issue.

I believe that although the media doesn’t mean to, the term breast cancer is starting to become somewhat commercialized. I see and hear of adds asking to participate in various events or donate to the cure, but I feel that because it’s another add, we are slowly becoming numb to the important message. So many people have somehow been touched by breast cancer, whether it be by having it, had it, or knowing someone who yet. These facts should make breast cancer a topic many could relate to and make people willing to hear and help. Yet, I personally feel that when people try to pitch the “How breast cancer affected me” speech, it becomes very “heard it already”. It’s not until we experience ourselves, or watch the person we love suffer through it that it becomes real.

People like Joe Spence really make a splash in the water when it comes to getting the word out about Breast Cancer and the personal struggle of it. The pictures are incredibly moving and very “in your face”. Nothing is left to the imagination, and as a woman, I felt incredibly moved to see images of real women with battle scars. The picture that hit me the most was the one where Spence had a survivor posing naked with the words “Monster” across her chest. I feel that I live in a world that lives off self image. Breast are a part of a woman that makes us feminine and to have that taken away would indeed make us feel like these ugly monsters.

As a woman, I commend people like Rose Kushner and Joe Spence for bringing to light an issue that we sometimes overlook, or at least, an issue I have overlooked.