Rant of the Month: Celebrity Cancers

So it's been a while since I've had a rant this long.. but this one keeps surfacing its ugly little head. When I first heard the news, I thought.. "well, good on ya!" and moved on. And then the media kept harping on about it. And then came the facebook and social media story shares. And then a renewed interest in breast cancer... Why the interest only when some high profile person makes it a story, be it their own or someone they know? If public awareness for any sort of cancer is so important (which it is!), then why aren't there more stories in mainstream media about the inspirational stories of non-celebs?

As some of you may have heard, a certain high profile actress wrote a letter to a newspaper detailing a very personal journey and decision a little over a week ago. I'm still undecided about the way the news was announced and the subsequent impact on people. Yes, the extra attention and increased awareness about breast cancer is awesome because there are some really ignorant people out there (I had no idea about the mudslinging and childish responses, or that there was a "team Aniston" until I came across these being mentioned at Hello Giggles. I must be living under a rock.). Despite this positive effect towards increased awareness about breast cancer, this media hoo-haa leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Yes, I agree it was a brave thing to do.Yes, I agree it is a huge decision that makes you choose between your family, your future (and theirs) and you personal ego and image. It tears down your self-confidence and makes you face your fears and insecurities (as if the news of having cancer isn't enough.. you now have to deal with your innermost thoughts about your body image). It makes you fear that your partner will no longer like you, that they'll be disgusted with you after the mastectomy and worst of all, you'll be left alone. Yes, having breast cancer (or any other cancer) is a fricking scary thing to go through and sends you on an emotional roller coaster. I can not imagine how much courage it would have taken this actress to share her story with the public. My mom is a damn strong and stubborn woman with a huge streak of fighting spirit, and she went through all of that. It took her a week after getting diagnosed to find the strength and ability to break the news to me. That was more than 15 years ago. I was 9 years old and I still remember how scared she looked as she tried to put up her bravest face to play down her emotional turmoil. My aunt went through the same thing. They were both 39 when diagnosed with no family history and no breast cancer gene.

This is why I get so pissed off every single time some celebrity comes out and announces that she's been diagnosed with such and such cancer. Forget about the naysayers and the imbeciles that only know how to flame, taunt or ridicule. The rest of the other types of media frenzy that follows is a tad sickening for me. I get the part about the courage and bravery. It's the rest of it that I have a bone to pick.

Facts get twisted. Sometimes, there is mass hysteria. Or the "me too" syndrome like this list, or this one, of celebrities who have had cancer. What was the purpose of compiling that list with little snippets of their story that does not paint the full picture of each person's personal cancer journey? Or in this actress' instance..  Did she even find a lump in her breast at all, or she just decided that the lifetime risk was too great? Did she undergo regular screening as another preventative measure that was also non-invasive prior to surgery? Did she know about the other risk factors for getting breast cancer? Most women with breast cancer do not have a positive family history. Out of all the women diagnosed with breast cancer, around 10% of them have a family history of it. I'm not sure if and how many people realize that you can get breast cancer as a cruel twist of fate.  That undergoing preventative mastectomies can reduce but not eliminate your chances of getting breast cancer. That there are other options depending on the stage of the cancer, and not all women should go rushing out to chop off their breasts. Very few articles mention expert opinion of any sort..

If I had a superficial inkling about breast cancer, reading that published letter would have led me to believe that yes, it's hard to come to that decision of having a preventative mastectomy but it was a positive and correct decision for the actress. She now has reduced her chances of getting cancer drastically and can enjoy the rest of her life with her beautiful family. So, I should also consider doing the same if I get diagnosed with breast cancer. After all, you can end up leading a normal life shortly after surgery. But wait! I don't have breast cancer. I should go get a mammogram then, in case I have it. I wonder if there has been a recent spike at radiology practices of women requesting mammograms. 

Bullshit, I say. Leading a normal life "days after surgery," the letter reads. The surgical wounds take two weeks post-op to heal, on average. You may be in some sort of discomfort from your wounds during this time. You may end up with scars, or keloids when your surgical scars heal that can continue to cause you some emotional trauma like it did for my mom. You may need to undergo further surgery to reconstruct your breasts if you choose that option. Again, there are post-op issues of pain, scars, infection, implant failures and regular monitoring for cancer recurrence afterwards. Trips to the doctor's. Blood tests. Physiotherapy sessions. Trying to find special bras with pockets for breast fillers if you don't get a reconstruction. Being conscious of tops that are too low cut and may reveal your bra and possibly some padding stickin out. Emotional toll as you take off your bra with the fake breast at night and battling self-confidence, fears (justified or not) of partner's reactions and change in relationships. The knowledge that you've gone through all of this to merely reduce your chance of getting breast cancer again but you might get really unlucky and get it again.

Does any of that sound like a "normal" life "days after surgery"? You tell me. 

All these people come out with a press conference or something through the media to announce a cancer or other disease. Then comes the "I/We will stay strong, thank you for your support" messages (What about those who are currently inpatients that are already battling the disease? Do you see any of them announcing that they will stay strong, thank you for your support? They just battle on and get on with it, same as these high profile people should). Then the show of support to others with the same disease, be it in generalized terms or highlighting charities and research efforts towards finding a cure for the disease. Sometimes,  this means more media exposure. Well, that's very good and all but if the cancer was such a huge and important issue to campaign for, why didn't all these people do it before they got the disease? If the risk  of getting breast and ovarian cancer was so huge with this actress, why didn't she do anything about it before she started having a family? After all, didn't she cite her family's future as one of the reasons for undergoing surgery? It's not as if she just suddenly found out her mom had breast cancer.. so again, if the risk was so great for her, why wait until now to do something about it?

So no, it is not a "tremendous public service" that she performed... she did what she had to do under circumstances unique to her. The majority of the population do not carry the BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene (or other less "famous" breast cancer genes), and even if they do, everyone has slightly different chances of the mutations occurring to result in breast cancer. You don't go out and contemplate cutting off a body part because it's got potential to turn foul on you. If that was the case, why don't all you men go and chop out your testicles as a preventative measure for testicular cancer? After all, it's the most common solid cancer in guys between ages 15 - 35.

So yes, praise all these high profile women (and men) for being so "courageous" and "brave" for sharing their personal stories and struggles with the public but for goodness sakes, don't make a fuss over it. They're people too. If they want to use their celebrity status to raise awareness and provide support, go for it but be transparent about it like this actress rather than shroud it in a "I had this, did this and survived so you can too" propaganda. Do the "I had this, did this and survived" bit.. I have no problems with that, but be responsible and advise people to go seek professional opinions from their doctors instead of implying that "you can too" part. Drives me bonkers that people nowadays look up Dr Google more often than not, and if they go see an actual doctor with a medical degree, people still sometimes bring along Dr Google and ignore professional advice! This is aside from the fact that not all  practicing doctors are ethical, or are up to date with their knowledge. Discussing that would open another can of worms.

Anyway, I just feel that if the media, or a celebrity wanted to make a fuss, or a difference... why not go visit/interview any of the patients in the oncology ward at any of the hospitals and share their stories, their struggles, their fears to raise public awareness for such and such cancer? They may not be high profile public figures, but they have families, dreams, talents, fears and a life to fight for too. 

Never-ending Learning

So, that request to design stationery for someone's wedding was a huge huge lesson for me. Never jump in without knowing what exactly you're in for, and never be afraid to say "No."

It was really hard for me to work without any direction from the buyer. Worse still, they didn't know whether the stationery I would be designing would be used at all! Deep down, I really didn't want to spend all that time and effort coming up with a design, just for them to turn around and say "Awesome design, thank you but we don't need it anymore."

So I was stuck in that awkward place where I had already agreed to take the job but couldn't proceed, yet I couldn't tell the buyers bluntly how I felt. Anyway, it all worked out well and I'm a lot more clear about my stipulations now.

*Sigh*

I'm so glad I have this little space online. My breathing space. Somewhere I can run to when I feel crowded or confused. You know, like Lucy from the Big Bang Theory? Well, this is my bathroom with a window to escape through.

Wonder if I'll ever outgrow this habit of mine.. to think that I've been running here for the past nine years. We'll see if there's any cause for celebration next September at the 10-year mark :)

Quivering!

Oh goodness, oh no! Oh my! Oh, eeek!

Just needed to get this outta my system. These fluctuating high levels of contrasting emotions is driving me insane!

I just got asked to design some wedding invitations for a complete stranger and as honored as I am that they trust me with such a personal thing, I am also freaking out because I want it to be perfect for them! What have I gotten myself into?!

Ever had to just jump and jiggle on the spot to shake all your jitters out? That's me right now :D Wish me LOTSA LUCK!!

Enticed by a devil called social media

So, this Etsy venture has kicked off and we've even got our first sale from a complete stranger somewhere in the the USA.  Not bad for a shop a few days old, knowing that some people only get their first sale a few weeks or months down the line!

Am pretty excited about that! But the irony was.. I've been learning so much about this whole online shop thing, about Etsy, joining teams, promoting and such and yet, our first customer came from nowhere. Not from facebook, twitter, wanelo, etsy discussions.. nada. In the process of getting acquainted with all the social media available, I'm having second thoughts less than a week in.

THEY CREATE SO MUCH NOISE!! Noise as in spam, superfluous pixels.. color static. I want to stick to my guns and prove my mettle "the right way," knowing that that means everything and nothing to different people. As much as I appreciate having a certain item of mine being "liked" on Etsy and elsewhere by complete strangers to "help" me promote, I also dislike that feeling that those "likes" are artificial. Random, thoughtless clicking by strangers compelled to do so for the promise that other strangers will do the same for their products.

That's the crux of it, I suppose. I don't like the fact that it's artificial, mindless and there's a motive involved that isn't a bit more altruistic. What have gotten myself into? Dare I ditch them to strike out alone? Do I want to risk the next three months without a single sale? Is it even practical? So many questions to answer! Time for my thinking cap..

Giving Back

Once again, I've been hit with that childish giddiness - that feeling that everything in the world is bright, shiny, beautiful and where the dark, lies and other monsters don't exist. To experience this first thing in the morning.. it's awesome!

I came across (as you do when you follow, then follow, and follow more links down rabbit holes) this very inspiring creation of three wee kids in Sydney who have been busy with their project, a website called Share and Inspire. They are guided along by their mom as they research graphic designers to make inspirational canvas prints for them to sell online. All proceeds get donated to a charity they have researched and picked that supports children, their families and education. The clincher is that these young ladies are aged 5, 7 and 8! Makes me squeal with glee at the cuteness of it all, compounded with the goodness! Ah... too. much. warm. and. fuzzy. feelings.

To top it off, I came across another awesome project aimed at educating kids, in a different way. The medical students at the University of Notre Dame in Fremantle have been training to not only become people doctors (good luck to you all, don't let my cynicism get in the way), but to also become Teddy Bear Doctors at the Teddy Bear Hospital! Awwww!! Why didn't we come up with something so warm and fuzzy with our medical student society? *pout* Instead, there were piss-ups and pub-crawls and "Suture Nights" and plastering workshops where half the people attended to learn, and the other half showed up for social reasons. I don't recall any philantrophic activities.. it was always about us, and never others. How embarrasing..

Anyway, I digress. Just deflated my own happy bubble. Tsk.. now I have to go inflate it again by clicking on the warm and fuzzy websites again! =D Hopefully, will be able to pass this on as best as I can once my etsy shop is up and about. Have plans of donating a portion of sales to a charity I've been volunteering with!

Etsy Fun

Am so, so excited!
The day is drawing near.
I've been worried I won't make it,
But everything's now clear

From one wee bear,
An idea grew
And now I've too many
Oh my, who knew?

So now it seems,
The right time's come
Sometime next week
We're opening with aplomb!

And the Journey ...kinda begins

I've gone and de-railed myself this year, and it's both exciting and scary to travel off my beaten track! From wanting to do a millions things and not knowing where to start, to STILL wanting to do a million things but finding a starting point that's propelled me in all sorts of unexpected directions, I'm finally on my way!

To do what, you might ask?

Well.. we'll see how this pans out over the next few months. Gut instinct is to be extremely protective and secretive, but this goes against everything in this retail industry I'm dabbling in. I'm supposed to go out there and flaunt my wares, to garner customers and fans and network! So, I'm starting to challenge my personal comfort zones yet again by putting it out there - I'm opening an Etsy store!

It might not seem like a huge deal, and some might ask what Etsy even is... (it's an online marketplace mainly known for the variety of handmade things people sell there, from food, clothes and stationery to the downright wtf) but I'm taking my store very very seriously. I kinda have to. I turned down a secure job for this year to embark on this crazy journey. It kinda has to work out somehow.

So here we are.

My store's nearly ready to open. My listings are slowly filling up. Bits and pieces of my required supplies are filtering in. My designs have been sent off for professional printing. I've got a logo! There's still a ton of work to do that I would never have known about a month ago, but that's what keeps me on my toes!

I guess this is all I'll let on for now. Throughout this post, I've obviously come to a subconscious decision to half tell whoever is out there without the details, for I'm still not sure I want to reveal my Etsy identity just yet. Or whether I'll try and keep the two worlds separate with different blogs. But ah well. Can decide later! Planning to launch the store sometime in April, fingers crossed!

It's Already March!

Holy moly!

I can't believe it's already March. Autumn. First quarter of the year, gone. Just like that. I haven't even gotten a chance to DO anything yet!

Time, please slow down. By a lot. With a cherry on top.

what's with the hoo-ha?

Slowly but surely, various friends and their friends and their friends start this stream of protest pictures and opinions about this Population White Paper over in Singapore. Without even having to do Google searches or any blog-hopping, I am pretty sure that the usual suspects floating around the Singapore blogosphere would have many opinions (witty or otherwise), analyses and of course, pictures adorning each blog or website.

All of this hoo-ha got me curious. I've got a million questions!

What is this magical 6.9 million number that keeps getting mentioned? What exactly is this Population White Paper and why is it suddenly such a huge piece of news now, and not.. say, last month or last year? Why are people so agitated over it? Why do people care enough to stage a protest in Singapore?

So I went and went straight to the horse's mouth and learnt a thing or two.

Some parts of it got me so agitated, I was rebutting every sentence I had read. 

From what I've gleaned, there are three components to the Paper. One's to do with the population and family planning. The second's to do with the economy and the last is to do with the quality of living. Within each section, there are more specific issues that are highlighted.

With regards to family planning and the population issue, the Paper wants to

• encourage marriage and parenthood 
• remain open to immigration
• help new immigrants adapt to the local way of life and "reinforce our values and sense of belonging"

So great! This Paper proposes to make it easier to couples to have kids and help young families settle into places of their own. How noble. How dare it assume that the norm is the traditional nuclear family, or that one needs to marry and then have children to be considered a family. What about those who do not want to get married, but are happily with the love of their life.. with or without kids? What about those who cannot have kids? Or the ones that live with extended family members and various generations under one roof, but have just started their own brood? Why are these families penalized for not conforming to the supposed "norm" the Paper sets, and therefore misses out on some of the potential benefits outlined?

The Paper also wants to allow immigrants to arrive and take root, with an annual quota declared to have some control of how fast the population will boom. The last point baffles me. Who exactly is deriving benefits from adapting local ways of life here? The local population, who can feel better about themselves compared to the newcomer and therefore, have a reinforced sense of belonging in an "us vs them" mentality? 

As to the economy, the Paper wants to

• create good jobs for the Singaporean Core 
• complement the Core with foreign workforce
• moderate the workforce so it doesn't "outpace infrastructures" and "to drive necessary" restructuring and productivity improvements

What does the Paper define as "good"? What does the population define as "good"? Do the two coincide? It's quite appalling that more and more people seem to view less and less jobs as appealing, or good. Apparently, word on the streets amongst the young'uns is that being the checkout chick is just as "bad" and "beneath them" as being a janitor, and the ideal job is one that garners the greatest fame/power/respect coupled with the fattest pay check requiring the least amount of effort to gain the aforementioned two criteria. This doesn't exactly leave a lot of jobs to pick from. Of course, one solution as the Paper proposes, is to import foreigners to fill in the gaps and work the jobs the locals don't want. There presumably will also be foreign imports to fill in so-called "top" jobs until there are local equivalents to match the level of expertise required, if possible. It's no wonder that the local workforce is scared of the foreign competition and losing out. It's no wonder that people feel compelled to work long hours to be ahead of any perceived competition amongst both local and foreign colleagues just to stand out amongst the crowd and earn their level-ups. And then you wonder why people aren't busy making babies to boost the population and why the Paper needs one section to address purely numbers... d'oh.

Local mentality has to change because currently, I don't think there's a long term solution that is viable. I'm in no way defending the Paper, but I can see where some of the plans stem from. The locals are so picky about the jobs available, they leave no other choice but for the powers that be to import foreigners. And then the locals complain about these foreigners competing with them for jobs and crowding their country. And THEN, the locals complain about the Paper when it tries to provide a stop-gap solution for this downward spiral as the locals become even more prissy and decline jobs that are no longer "respectable" or "fashionable." We haven't even begun addressing the issue of the ageing workforce yet! The local mentality has to change.

 Then, there is this quality of living business that the Paper addresses. It wants to

• plan/create infrastructure ahead of demand with projected population in 2030 hitting 6.5 - 6.9 million
• implement infrastructure programs to expand transport etc
• explore new technology and solutions to optimize land use/create new land etc

Good for you. Good luck in making it work. I don't see why the Paper proposes to create unnecessary work for everyone. Why would you be so ambitious and increase the population by that  much, and then be pressured into developing new tech/solutions to cater for the population increase? Why are such pressures required to spur improvement? What about focusing on the current population and try figuring out what would make their lives easier to live, instead of ignoring them to focus on generations that may or may not come into existence? 

The long and short of it, in my view, is that the Paper outlines reasonable issues that have been identified as potential problems in the near future. It is certainly not wrong to highlight these concerns and formulate plans to circumvent future problems, although it seems to me that some of the plans appear to be temporary stop-gap measures without sufficient think-through of consequences or "nipping the problem in the bud" approaches. Have I also mentioned... the local mentality has to change or else, the Strawberry generation will be finding it harder and harder to attain any quality of life in the near future.