We are in the month of October now, and since it is Breast Cancer Awareness Month,many of us are thinking pink. We wear pink shirts, hats or bracelets, to honor breast cancer survivors and to remember those that lost their fight.  But there are so many more colors in what I think of as the ” cancer rainbow.” For every type of cancer, ( and there are way too many as far as I’m concerned,), there is a color. There is light blue for prostate cancer, black for melanoma, and pink,purple,& teal for thyroid cancer, just to name a few.

No matter what type of cancer we may have been affected by, there is one common factor that brings us together: finding a cure . Cancer is an insidious disease. If not caught early, it can ravage the body, as well as the spirit.  And even when it is caught early, it’s still scary to hear the words,” it’s malignant,” being directed towards you. I should know. Next month it will be 11 years since I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer.

Hearing those words about myself put fear in my heart. I was only 36 and didn’t want to die. But  I was lucky. My cancer was caught early and was very treatable. I’m not the only cancer survivor in my family. My father is a 6-year survivor of prostate cancer, and in December, my mother will mark 22 years as a breast cancer survivor. Though my sister has not had caner herself( thank goodness!), she’s been affected by having a family full of survivors. I have also lost a grandfather, a cousin, and an aunt to cancer and have another cousin who is a survivor. A year ago I lost a childhood friend to breast cancer, and several years ago my best friend lost her dad to prostate cancer. Too many people have been affected by cancer one way, or another.

So let’s rally around together,and do all we can to find a cure and kick cancer in the butt!!  To paraphrase that famous song from The Wizard of  Oz, :  

Somewhere over the rainbow there will be
A world without cancer in it for you and for me
Somewhere over the rainbow skies are blue
‘Cause we’ll do all that we can to make that dream come true !