Awareness

Here we arew, four days into September, and I still haven't acknowledged that it's  Lymphoma Awareness Month (in fact, it's Blood Cancer Awareness Month, so we're giving some love to the Leukemia and Myeloma folks, too.)

If you're reading this, you're probably more aware of Lymphoma than you'd ever care to be, but it's nice to have some time set aside to make people extra-super-special aware, with, one hopes, some stuff in local newspapers, or online, or on Facebook, or wherever you get your information about the world.

I think the best way to highlight awareness this year is to link to an article by Lymphoma Goddess Betsy de Parry, who frequently contributes to AnnArbor.com with articles about her own experiences as an NHL survivor. She writes, refering to the ribbons that signal awareness of the different blood cancers, "Their colors haven't been slapped on everything from cleats to chicken buckets to pizza boxes, but their contribution to advancing the understanding of cancer and treatment for it has been significant." (And in case you're wondering what those colors are, here's a handy guide from Betsy's article:)

As Betsy points out, research on blood cancers has paved the way for research on other cancers. Early attempts at chemotherapy focused on treating NHL and leukemia. Years later, the first monoclonal antibody treatment to be approved for any cancer was our old pal Rituxan. And research on genetic links to cancer began with CML (chronic myelogenous leukemia).

Aren't we privileged to have such useful cancers?

I actually do remember being told by Dr. R very early on that a lot of research gets done on NHL because it gives us a better understanding of the immune system and what can go wrong with it. Better understanding of the immune system = potentially better understanding of how cancer evades it. So we really do have useful cancers.

So that's all I'll say about Lymphoma Awareness. We're all hyper-aware as it is. But do maybe find a little time to make others aware, anyway. The pink flood will start in a couple of weeks; let's get our message out while we can.