What has pink done for you?

It's October, so I've come to expect that when I enter a grocery store (or any store) I will see tons of products with pink packaging, bearing a pink ribbon, or even sporting a pink reinvention of themselves. It's almost become a sort of retail holiday and, as such, it's a little more than sad seeing all that pink merchandise in the clearance bins at the beginning of November.

Even the web is filled with tons of ads, links and sites devoted to this pink merchandise, and I halfway expected to see the two "o"s in October's Google Doodle turned into...well...you can picture it, I'm sure.

As a living beneficiary of one of the most exciting breakthroughs in breast cancer research, I'm all for raising research dollars and building awareness of this devastating disease. I've said on several occasions that if I had to get breast cancer, I sure lucked out on the timing. So many advances have been made in just the past few years, and five-year survival rates continue to rise. This is great news! But I also look around and wonder..."Is all this pink doing anything? How much of each dollar spent on these products actually goes to research, and by seeing pink everywhere are women (and men) inspired to take better care of themselves?" I have no clue. I did find a site however that seems to take these questions to heart.

But there's another part of this explosion of pink that bothers me. Cancer is cancer. It all sucks. Since my own diagnosis, I've watched several of my brothers and sisters succumb with quiet bravery, and leave this earth way before they should. It's heartbreaking. Why can't pink be their color too? ALL cancers need funding for research.

I guess if I ruled the world, I'd dedicate the month of October to (Not Just Breast) Cancer Awareness ... and the color I'd use? This one. (But yellow is OK too, Lance.)

Until then, I'll continue to encourage every woman out there to get regular screenings and to get very familiar with her ~ ( . ) ( . ) ~. And if you think something is wrong, don't take no for an answer. As much as I love pink M&Ms, it was a mammogram that saved my life.