The Peach Campaign: The Need to Raise Awareness about Uterine Cancers

It was my friend, Trina, who taught me that peach color is used to represent uterine cancers.  She has been wearing a peach ribbon in my honor whenever she runs in half-marathons since learning of my diagnosis.

When I found out I had endometrial cancer, I realized I did not know much about this type of cancer.  I knew much more about breast cancer largely because the pink campaign is so strong.  It has raised awareness about breast cancer.  I knew of other cancers like melanoma, bone marrow, brain and esophageal because I knew people who survived those cancers.  Endometrial cancer was a new territory for me.

There was a documentary made about gynecologic cancers: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/nedthemovie/ in hopes to raise awareness about 'below the belt' cancers which include endometrial cancer.  I have not seen the film yet but some of the women in the online support group that I am part of shared some tidbits.

1. Equal number of women die from gynecologic cancer as men die from prostate cancer.  However, gynecologic cancers receive less than 50% of the funding than prostate cancer does.

2. At a large conference of gynecologists, a gynecologic oncologist asked how many of them heard of the pink campaign.  ALL of them did.  Many of them donated to the pink campaign causes.  Very few in the audience knew about the Foundation for Women's Cancer and none of them have donated to the funding for gynecologic cancer research.   Sadly, those are the doctors that women depend on to monitor for early detection of gynecologic cancers.

It certainly helped me understand why Dr. Busch thought my period changes were just normal.  Dr. Busch probably did not know anything about identifying warning signs of gynecologic cancers. 

I learned about the Foundation of Women's Cancer through my support group (http://www.foundationforwomenscancer.org/) and have found their website to be full of great resources.   Here's some information for you all to review: http://www.foundationforwomenscancer.org/wp-content/uploads/Facts-about-Gynecologic-Cancers.pdf.

Today Mike and I were shopping today looking for peach-colored ribbons, balloons, and paper.  We went to several stores and could not find any peach-colored balloons and ribbons.  I commented that finding peach-colored stuff is as hard as finding women who had endometrial cancer before menopause.  It ain't a peachy ride.  We'll figure it out one way or another.

Postscript: Thanks to Amazon.com... we found peach balloons and ribbons. :-)