I've been a right tit.

On two occasions, Monty Python's Flying Circus was censored by the BBC for submitting scripts that made jokes about cancer. There is a Terry Gilliam animation in which a Prince with a black spot on his face dies of cancer.

The cancer, having killed the prince, then leaves the face and goes off on its own adventures, eventually settling down and having little baby cancers. The Beeb decided that this was too edgy and they redubbed the voiceover so that the prince died of "gangrene," which, as everyone knows, is a much more hilarious way to die.

The next time cancer was taken out of Python was during the Conquistador Coffee sketch:



Man, I love YouTube.

I suppose you can see where "that which can't be named" wasn't.

I have always wondered, "Why not? What did the BBC have against cancer jokes?" Well, this week I figured it out. When you are talking about cancer, you are talking about a devastating invasive disease that turns the body against itself, which is almost perfectly unpleasant to treat, and that can (and eventually will, by the law of averages) strike anyone. (Right now, fair reader, your immune system is destroying cells that can't be repaired and that are reproducing otherwise unchecked. Eventually, one of the little buggers is going to get through.) I'm guessing that someone at the BBC knew someone who had cancer and knew the toll that it takes on patients and their families. (Ironically, Graham Chapman died young of a rare form of spinal cancer.)

What I'm saying is, tread softly around this topic, dear reader, because you may hurt people without intending it.

Enter Bing McGhandi (not my real name), wearing steel-toed boots, which are in turn filled with stomping jackass. I had an opinion (and not necessarily a bad one, I don't think), and I put it up a few days ago. However, I trod heavily on some sensitive ground, and I was soundly schooled in the travails of young breast cancer survivors.

The problems that the young breast cancer community faces are many. If the cancer is estrogen-activated, a pre-menopausal woman's ovaries feed the fire. Because a pre-menapausal woman's estrogen-responsive tumor grows rapidly, even well-timed early screening may not detect the nascent tumor. At the same time, the gaps in the medical system that screens young women for this disease are still very easy to fall through. For instance, take the instance of Courtney, a woman who died very young, in her early twenties, and who was still a kid when she got sick. For months, her physician treated her lump with antibiotics. You will be stunned to hear that antibiotics don't work on breast cancer.

A case like Courtney's puts physicians in a real bind. Probabilistically, the mass that Courtney had was not cancer and should have been easy to treat, as her doctor thought. Except that there seems to be (or should be) a preventative imperative whereby you rule out the most serious potential diagnoses on the differential first. It seems to me, then, that the important thing (I'm just tossing out ideas here) to do and a major area of research should be developing inexpensive, in-office tests that allow for rapid preliminary diagnoses, so that physicians can rule out the vast majority of non-cancer cases, while still picking up cancers. This would streamline the diagnostic process and track patients into the correct course of treatment most quickly. As we know, for young women, time is absolutely essential because their cancers are aggressive and young women may not insist on getting routine exams, which gives their cancers time to spread.

I have never before asked my readers for compensation. The Internet is where everything is free, and writing, for me, is its own reward, but this time I am asking you to do me an immense favor and make a donation to either (or both) of the following two organizations. Go take a look at these groups, between which I am splitting my donation.

http://www.youngsurvival.org (https://www.youngsurvival.org/donate/)
http://www.breastcancersisterhood.com/

Donations are swell, but understand that cancer is pretty damned inconvenient and treatment derails everyday life. So I repost Cassie's recommendation:

Please ask your followers to find someone who needs kindness, and provide it. Maybe some of your readers have some young woman in their lives who are fighting the beast (as we call it) and just CANNOT get her garden weeded. Or can't quite catch up on laundry. Or might like some flowers. Or just needs an afternoon to herself, and needs someone to take her kids to the movies for a while.

If a reader of yours doesn't have a breast cancer survivor laying around, then they can find someone else who needs kindness. It's not that hard to find someone who needs a little pay-it-forward. That's what I'd really like. Donations are nice, too, and important, and I'm not minimizing that. I'm just saying that maybe you can encourage your readers to more actively provide support for someone who needs support. That would be a great kindness, too.

This is perhaps the most attractive option, I think, as you will actually see your time and talent pay off in the life of someone who really needs to borrow you.

According to the Young Survival Coalition:

The success of YSC's programs depends on the support of dedicated volunteers locally, nationally and internationally. These men and women lend their time and talents to assist the YSC in increasing the quality and quantity of life for all young women living with breast cancer. We provide volunteer opportunities at our central office, through our affiliate network, in your local community and abroad. If you have any questions or would like more information, please email volunteer@youngsurvival.org.

I see Young Survival Coalition branches in Atlanta (yay!), Columbus, Houston, Indianapolis, Kansas City, and Northern New Jersey.

What I would like to do is to get a number of stories of service from HJHOP readers over the next few months, which we'll cross-post over at youngsurvival.org. Who do you know who has gone through cancer? Who did you meet? I'll give each contributor room to post in their own article. I've spoken highly of you, and these women are depending on you. I spend a lot of time bitching here, and we spend a lot of time commiserating. This is a chance for us to actually do something. I look forward to your stories, which can be sent to my email listed above.

HJ