Calendar Girl Blog: Breast Cancer Conferences

It always takes me a few days to get over a conference, no matter what the focus. I find the conference environment unpleasant....poor air, strange lighting, industrial food and packed schedule very taxing. My regular work world is much higher quality with fewer people and a more manageable pace.

Breast cancer conferences are no different than most conferences that I've attended except for one key feature. The emotional energy. Breast cancer events are always attended by breast cancer survivors and whether conference organizers like it or not, emotions run high and deep.

Survivor delegates come from many different camps. Some are newly diagnosed or in the midst of nasty treatments. Others are raking up days that distance them from the moment they found out that cancer had invaded their breasts. Women may or may not wear their wigs and prosthesis. And no matter how long they've been free of the disease, they will recount their experience in great, horrifying detail to who ever is listening.

I've heard many sad stories. Women I've met along the way have had horrible first encounters with the disease. Some tell of failed reconstruction and relapses. Families split up. Finances are ruined. Careers are lost. Women die.

All are fearful. None sail through.

I listen to the stories and offer whatever I intuitively feel is needed. I notice how the conferences move along, with no space for the tears, grief or fear. Not a tissue in sight. No time for sadness. Only courage is rewarded. Strength. Stiff upper lip.

Pretty in Pink.

Calendar Girl would love to see a conference that sinks below the surface of protocol. Instead of making everything 'look good', perhaps a conference could allow everyone to 'be real'.

But who am I to say. I'm not a survivor.

Calendar Girl hates breast cancer.

Calendar Girl

Tags: Calendar Girl Blog, calendar girl blog, Breast of Canada Calendar, Sue Richards, pink.