Everywhere I look, I see pink. Ribbons in store windows, slogans printed on t-shirts, celebrities smiling in glossy ads with their arms crossed like they’re ready for battle. The world is painting itself with hope and cheer and celebration.
But for me, there’s nothing simple or pink about this month.
Cancer Isn’t Just October
I don’t get to put cancer in a box and bring it out once a year. I don’t get to wear a ribbon, make a donation, and move on with my life. For me, cancer isn’t October. Cancer is every day.
It’s in the calendar full of appointments. It’s the endless cycle of bloodwork, scans, chemo, pills, radiation consults. It’s waking up in a body that doesn’t feel like mine anymore—tired, sore, marked by scars that tell a story I never wanted to write. It’s sitting across from doctors, hearing words like “progression” or “metastasis” and trying not to crumble under the weight of them.
What Awareness Means to Me
For me, awareness isn’t abstract. It’s stage 4 metastatic breast cancer that has spread beyond my breast, into places of my body that doctors try to treat but can’t cure. It’s living with the knowledge that there is no end date, no “all clear,” no bell to ring. It’s the reality that the only finish line for me is the one I don’t want to reach.
That’s what October feels like when you’re living in this body.
Pink Without Progress Isn’t Enough
I don’t say this to take away from the importance of awareness, or the comfort people find in pink ribbons. I know those things matter. They raise money, they spark conversations, they honor people who have fought and survived and those we’ve lost. But I need you to know that they also fall short.
Because awareness without action isn’t enough. Pink without progress isn’t enough. And for those of us who are dying of this disease, seeing the world cheer and celebrate can feel like being left out of our own story.
Where are the stories of women like me, who are still here, but not cured? Where are the stories of those living with mets, managing treatment after treatment, holding onto life as tightly as possible? Where is the compassion for the exhaustion, the pain, the fear, the grief that doesn’t disappear after October ends?
The Hard Truth About This Month
This month is hard because it asks me to celebrate something that has broken me open. It asks me to smile at pink ribbons when my reality is bruises from IVs, hair thinning again, nausea, fatigue, and the quiet fear of what the next scan will show.
So today, on the first day of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, I’m asking you to look past the ribbons. Look past the slogans. See us—the ones who are still in the fight, the ones who don’t get to be “done,” the ones holding on to every scrap of time we get.
What We Need
We don’t just need awareness. We need better treatments. We need more research into metastatic disease. We need compassion that lasts all year long, not just in October. And most of all, we need to be seen as whole people—not as inspiration, not as symbols, but as humans who are still here, still loving, still hurting, still living.
For me, October is not pink. October is survival. October is reality. October is a reminder that life is fragile, that hope is complicated, and that behind every ribbon there is a person whose story is so much bigger than one month.
So please—remember us. See us. Fight for us. Not just this month, but every month.
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