Friday, August 1, 2014

Awareness & Ignorance

I was sitting on the couch with the hubs the other night and the baby blog was brought up and it dawned on me that I hadn't written in a while.  He points to his forehead and exclaims "I bet you have tons of stories a-brewin' up there".  I look down and realize that I don't.  The reason?  I'm good.  I guess the times when my fingers have things to say is when I'm worried...  But, things have been good over the last couple of months.

Then something happened.  I'm sure a lot of us Mel-a-land are fully aware.

The mother-effing G-Damn Surgeon General announced that tanning is (*gasp*) BAD FOR YOU!!!  Whaaaa?  The very first sentence from CNN's article (click here) states:
"Skin cancer is on the rise, according to the American Cancer Society, with more cases diagnosed annually than breast, prostate, lung and colon cancer cases combined."

Now, of course that 'figure' they are coming up with is not just Melanoma.  That includes ALL of the lovely forms of it with the three head honchos of the skin Cancer world are Basal Cell, Squamous Cell and creepy Melanoma.

I posted something to my Facebook page about it and step-son D commented saying something along the lines of 'people are just getting this?'  Yes, D, people are stupid.  Stupid, dummy mono...stupid, dummy mono!  *Little tid-bit of Amber Info: whenever I heard the word 'stupid', I sing "Stupid, Dummy Mono, Stupid, Dummy mono" in my head.  Mono = monkey in Spanish.  Don't ask.  O-kay, FINE - you can ask!!  These boys I went to school with in middle school would sing that song if someone did something stupid...like, you know trip or say something dumb.  You wished I didn't tell you, huh?  Yeah me too....me, too.

Anyways - lets move on shall we?

The stupidity...ermmh....ignorance of people reminds me of a little situation that happened with the hubs a bit ago.  A co-coworker mentioned that his wife had gone through breast cancer...or he was going to be taking care of his brother that had Cancer - maybe both, not sure.  The hubs, having something to talk about himself, mentioned me and our story.  The dude sat there with a blank look on his face. The hubs asked "Do you know what Melanoma is??".  The dude straight up said "Yeah, skin cancer?  Not really the same!" and then threw in an eye-roll for good measure.  What a dick!


All in all, I am so very happy the media is involved.  We alone are loud, but not all people listen.  We needed this Surgeon General announcement.  It only took them years and years, but hey - we'll take what we can get!