October Boobs Rerun: With Updates

Originally posted on October 1, 2010 and it's as relevant today as it was then.

Guess what? All of the links still work!

Score!

For my dear friend, The Purple Goddess.

Let's face it, I'm a cause-aholic. Not only am I genetically predisposed to overdo things, I was also taught to contribute my time, energy, and money when I could. So there you have it: the history of me in 29 words using proper punctuation. (I missed National Punctuation Day and I'm still in mourning.)

If you read my post about everything boobs, the cause I'm going to tell you about won't be surprising. If you read it and forgot to click on any of the 11 links I left lying around, then SURPRISE!

Today a gazillion bloggers are banding together to write about Love/Avon Army of Women [and Men] to promote awareness for their research program directed at finding the cause of breast cancer. Love/Avon gave us a list of talking points to hit upon in our posts.

See that cleverly titled link "talking points" and this one right here? Either one will take your sweet self to the entire list. It's well-written and concise. Whyo whyo meo myo would they even want me to try to get them all in this post is beyond me.

Here are the highlights:

EVERY FEMALE OR MALE ON EARTH OVER AGE 18 IS ELIGIBLE TO PARTICIPATE!!!

That's the only qualification to join. For more points to ponder, please visit AOW here.

Joining the ranks of Love/Avon Army of Women [and Men] is simple and completely private. By joining, you're simply stating your willingness to participate in research to find the cause of breast cancer. At this point, the organization is just forming a pool of candidates upon which to draw. All participation is voluntary. Some of you may want to join the Foot Soldiers to more actively participate in spreading the message about the newly formed alliance between Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation and Avon Foundation for Women. Yep, that's how they came up with their catchy name: Love/Avon Army of Women [and Men].

October 1st is the day they're hoping to reach their goal of 1,000,000 women and men all signed-up with their perky, tiny, huge, saggy, manly, implanted, and prostheses counted. In pairs, just like on Noah's Ark only not like that at all.

Check out how easy it is to join (yes, it's completely FREE). Look at all those tabs! Wowzer, they've put everything right there at your fingertips.

Warning: Don't attempt to click on this to get to the site. It's just a screen shot.

Questions? They've got your answers here. It's almost like they organized this whole thing in advance and were ready for any twist or turn in the long road ahead.

They asked each of us to do one final thing: share one of three short PSA videos with you. This one gave me goosebumps, so yeah, it's my choice. I hope you like it. If not, feel free to go here and here to check out the other two.



Strangely enough, no one thought to ask us to write about why we'd even be willing to spare our time, embrace our passion, and write on our blogs to support this cause.

My reason is simple: a 3-time breast cancer survivor saved my life.

What jumps out of that sentence is not that I'm alive—although she knows I'd bake chocolate chip cookies for her for the rest of her life if she asked—but that she's a THREE-time breast cancer survivor. THREE freakin' times she's fought the battle of a lifetime. THREE freakin' times she's beat the odds.

She was in the middle of chemo treatments when she dragged my sorry ass to the hospital for the final time. Her friend drove because she was too weak and tired. She kissed my cheek and let the emergency room attendants wheel me away before heading back home. For that, my mother would make her Swedish meatballs forever. For that, my husband would send her flowers every week and twice on February 1st. She doesn't want any of these things and she's never asked a single thing of me in return for my life.

For her, I write this post. For her, I've signed up to participate in studies for AOW. For her, I'll be walking a 5k for a cure next Saturday. {In 2011, I signed up to walk the 5k again but at the last minute was enlisted to photograph the event. It was one of the most incredible experiences I've had in a very long time.}

No woman or man should ever have to fight the beast we call breast cancer. We're pouring money into research for a cure. I support that whole-heartedly. Because the beast is a tenacious bastid and does recur, I'm even more excited about finding the cause. This beautiful woman, heart of my heart, should not have to face this beast a fourth time.

Other ways we can all help:

Sign up then recruit our family members and friends by using this private link: https://www.armyofwomen.org/invitefriend.

We Facebook folks can post something like this as our October 1st status: “I signed up to STOP breast cancer before it STARTS. Have you? Join today at www.armyofwomen.org, then copy and paste this status update as your own.”

We twits can tweet our hearts out about AOW and add the hashtag #WritePink.

Finally, dear friends with blogs, write your own posts and get 'em out there to be read by your followers.

If you haven't already clicked on one of the links in this post, here's a simple button to push to get you over to the website to sign your bad self up for the AOW.

2011 Update: Puma is celebrating pink by awarding a cash prize of up $125,000 to the winner of it's PUMA Project Pink initiative. Please help by voting for the Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation. Once you've signed up, you can cast your vote daily until October 7.