Letter to the Editor
Amanda Matherson's Oct. 29 letter regarding breast cancer awareness vs. just cancer awareness ("Include all cancers in awareness month") raised some wonderful points. Because cancer is so broad, it is difficult to have an entire month dedicated to only one type.
However, I think that creating a generalized cancer awareness month could almost do just the opposite -- it wouldn't allow general public exposure to specifics in a broad scope. A monthlong dedication to just one lends itself to this type specifically. Breast cancer affects one in eight women during their lives, and kills more women in the United States than any cancer except lung cancer.
When you aren't exposed to cancer, it's hard to imagine its effects. One of my 34-year-old college friends has just been treated for breast cancer, which was a terrible shock for someone so young.
Unfortunately, I've had quite a bit of personal exposure to cancer, and a type that also doesn't have its own month. My father, E. Owen Perry III, fought a hard fight against bladder cancer, beat it once and then had it return just a year and a half later.
Like Ms. Matherson, I'd also be thrilled with some broader media focus on cancer. But I think because cancer is so huge, a media focus on one type such as breast cancer promotes needed awareness, in turn encouraging a look at all things cancer.
Outside of awareness months, it's the media's responsibility to build public awareness of cancer, a disease that greatly affects about 11.1 million Americans, according to the American Cancer Society's most recent figures. The CSRA is so fortunate to have great oncology care such as at Doctors Hospital's Cancer Care Center, but it is the media's responsibility to make us aware of these things on a regular basis, and not only during an awareness month.
Laura Perry
Augusta
(The writer is a Doctors Hospital Cancer Care Center volunteer.)
