I never had heard of a bucket list before the movie of the same name. I did like the movie and need an assistant named Thomas to help me out sometimes. But do I need a bucket list? I am on the fence on this.
But here is this young woman in Wales who is terminally ill with breast cancer and was given 3-6 months to live, more than six months ago. She decided she was going to create a bucket list with the help of other terminally ill people. She is asking for help in figuring out what to put in her bucket list.
Some of them are:
running naked down a busy street
trying out her coffin dressed as Wonder Woman
knocking over displays in stores
riding in a race car
I would probably try those except the running part. I'm not that good at running these days.
What suggestions do I have for her?
borrowing library books with no intentions of returning them.
crap I can't think of anything else.
Maybe I don't want a bucket list. But anyway. Go watch Rowena try all sorts of things and give her your suggestions if you are terminally ill.
You can read about her here.
And you can watch her here.
Tonight is the premier of "Cancer: The Emperor of All Maladies" on PBS at 9 pm. The book was long and the movie actually is in three 2-hour parts airing through Wednesday night. I blogged about this a while back, I also read the book a couple of years ago. During the past week, I have also watched several trailers as well. Now the Tivo is set up to record it as it is on too late for me.
I am looking forward to this movie, or mini-series. But I do have a few reservations:
It was a long book and while it was fairly entertaining, it was long. It wasn't a book to sit down and read on the beach. It took some thinking and digesting. I would read a few chapters and ponder them for a few days or a week and then read more.
Although I reassured some in my other blog post, it does concern me that it is it is about cancer, which is not the most cheerful of topics. And sometimes I am just not in the mood to watch cancer-cancer-cancer.
Sometimes I have problems watching other people going through their cancer journeys. I have found some stories to be too drama filled, or sad, or have me wondering 'what were these people thinking?' when they or a family member were diagnosed with cancer.
If it is six hours of doctors talking about medical breakthroughs, I am not sure I will make it through.
There is no way I am going to stay up (with a cold, on a weeknight, three nights in a row) until 11 pm.
So it may take me a few days or a week or so to watch the entire six hours. I do hope to watch it and enjoy it. I will probably blog about it again when I am done.
Finally the film, Pink Ribbons Inc, is opening in the US. I blogged about this Canadian made film earlier this year. But now that it is out, there are more reviews available which gives a better idea of its focus.
Forbes.com has reviewed the film and provides these insights.
"Patients with various stages of breast cancer, public health advocates and researchers raise three important points:
No. 1: “Pink ribbon” marches, marathons and events (illuminating the Empire
State Building in pink to create breast cancer awareness, for example)
not only waste resources, they mislead public opinion about what’s
necessary to treat the disease.
No. 2: Financial benefits to research efforts from “cause marketing”
(in which brands such as Yoplait and Ford declare themselves “pink”) are
minimal, as is the gain from manufacture and marketing of pink
merchandise.
No. 3: The pink industry’s heavy use of war imagery (describing
“battle” against breast cancer, for example) is misleading and harmful
to the physical and psychological well-being of those whose cure–and
lives–depend on effective medicine, not metaphor."
"Even after massive fundraising efforts ($1.9 billion in the last 30
years from Susan G. Komen for the Cure alone), a woman's lifetime odds of
contracting the disease have narrowed from 1 in 22 in 1940 to 1 in 8
today. Little of that money has made its way into research into causes,
notably environmental factors like contaminants from plastics or
livestock treated with hormones, the film argues.
Instead the push has been for
early detection and developing a cure—two areas that benefit
pharmaceutical companies but not necessarily patients, a mere 20% — 30%
of whom come from high-risk groups. You can't cure what you don't
understand is one of the film's sobering messages."
"As one woman observes, describing the treatment of cancer as a "fight"
or a "battle" suggests that the disease is always beatable if patients
make a heroic effort. The implication is that people who die "weren't
trying very hard.""
[Anyone who tries to tell a woman with breast cancer that she isn't trying very hard needs is pretty damn stupid.]
"The disconnect between research and results is one of Pink Ribbons, Inc.'s
keenest points. On-screen commentators contend that breast-cancer
research is poorly coordinated and badly focused. Fewer than 30 percent
of patients have a genetic proclivity for the illness, which indicates
that most cases stem from environmental causes — yet relatively little
attention is paid to prevention, or to chemicals that mimic estrogen and
disrupt the human endocrine system."
A very thought provoking documentary on the ugly side of pinkification. Yes the film gives opportunities to for Komen and other non profits to offer their side but I think these messages are clear. Pink isn't helping. So please go watch the documentary if you can and learn more. If you wish to wear pink ribbons, just be sure to understand what the pink portion is going to and who or what it benefits.
My only problem with this film is that the closest it is showing to me is about 60 miles away - on the very tip of Cape Cod - which isn't very convenient in the summer.
A Canadian movie, Pink Ribbons Inc', was a selection of the 2011 Toronto Film Festival and is opening in Canadian theaters next week. It is a movie I think I would like to see. Here are the trailer and the origins of the film to see.
From what I understand of it, the controversy stems from a couple of levels - first of all the pink money making machine that has become breast cancer awareness and the fact that all this pinkification for a cure has not resulted in anything more than some medications and slightly longer life expectancies - not a cure as labeled.
These are the problems I have with pinkification in the first place - breast cancer is a bad thing and it should not be an income stream for anyone.
I think the Komen foundation has done a great deal to help raise awareness of cancer in general and breast cancer more specifically and deserves a lot of appreciation for their efforts. However I have never made the connection from pink football helmets and a cure for breast cancer.
And as with the rest of the so called 'war' on cancer, we have lots of ideas but no cure yet after decades and even centuries of trying.
My advice to anyone who is curious - don't buy pinked products and go see the movie.
Yes you will note the hint of sarcasm in my title as there is yet another cancer movie on TV tonight. I am a cynic about these. I am not comfortable with Hollywood's version of cancer often. When "The Big C" came out I was appalled by the title. I do admit to watching it and couldn't get past the third episode. Yes it was about cancer. Yes it was about someone who wasn't coping very well. But yes she was an hysterical drama queen. I won't watch the rest. I will also add that while the first season seemed to have reached some level of publicity the second season seems to have died a slow death and is now gone.
"Brian's Song" back in the 60's was a good movie. It kept the cancer side of it under wraps because it was the 60's and cancer was going to kill us all. I really liked "The Bucket List" because that did show the funny side of a terminal diagnosis and the differences between treatment for a rich person and a poor person when they get cancer. I can't wait to watch "50/50". Apparently it is not as good as the first reviews expected but from the trailer I have seen it shows a young man coping with a cancer diagnosis 'even though he recycles' - you will get that joke if you have seen it.
But tonight on Lifetime is a movie called "Five". It is actually five shorts about different women coping with a breast cancer diagnosis. I will not attempt to stay up and watch it because it is a 'school' night and I have to get up in the morning but the DVR is set to record it on Lifetime at 10pm. At the urging of women on breast cancer support boards, I watched the trailer and am inspired enough to record it by the line 'why can't I get thigh cancer? I hate my thighs.' If there is no humor in a cancer movie I'm not watching it. Cancer has to include humor or it has already sucked the life out of you. But I digress. It is inspired by Jeanne Tripplehorn's own story.
I do plan on watching it later this week as I have two event filled days later this week which will leave me on ice (literallly) in front of the TV for a few days. (Thursday I am having that nasty back procedure and Friday I am getting a needle under my other knee cap and in between I have an appt with my PCP so I can tell her how healthy I am.) In between the drugs and the ice packs, I will have ample opportunity to catch up on the full DVR.
But if my inner cynic doesn't appreciate another Hollywood version of cancer, I can hit Stop and Erase Now.
I now have two cancer movies I want to see 'Dying to Do Letterman' and '50/50'.
Dying to Do Letterman is a documentary and is out selectively in theaters. They are trying to raise money to show it nationally. I blogged about it recently but here I am blathering on about it again. I also just found out they are going to have a book out in October so I may have to settle for that.
I saw the trailer for '50/50' a couple of months ago. Now it is now being screened at some theater in LA and since I live on the East coast I'll have to wait until its released on Sept 30. Originally another blogger wrote about it and said it was his life with his room mate... Its not about him but a true to life version of life with cancer. And it had a very good review in Cure Magazine - which is another reason for wanting to see it. (If you have cancer and don't read Cure Magazine, you should.)
I also want to see 'The Help' and did finally see the last Harry Potter movie.
As I said yesterday and many times before, I only blog about what I want. I am picky. Also, my thoughts have changed over the years since my most recent cancer diagnosis in 2007. At first I wouldnt read books or see movies that had the word cancer in them. It was too painful to watch. I kept on finding cancer mixed up in all my normal books - why did someone have to get breast cancer and die and ruin a perfectly good trashy romance novel? Or what is chemotherapy doing on that TV show? I was looking for cancer free zones to enjoy snippets of a reality that had no cancer.
Slowly I got better about this. I watched 'The Bucket List' and while I still have not put together my list, I have put some thought in to it. And if you are wondering, they did a pretty darn good job of portraying chemo and its effects. Then I read a few books that included heroines coping with cancer and their strong, handsome romeos caring for them through their nausea and midnight trips to the ER.
I got a request at the end of last week to write a post about an upcoming documentary that I am now dying to see. Steve was a stand up comedian who's dream was to appear on Letterman. He kept trying and kept getting declined but continued to persevere. Then he got cancer. One of those lovely kinds - where there is no treatment and no cure. Those are the really fun kinds of cancer. They take a lot of pictures of your insides regularly and tell you how much they have grown/shrunk and you don't have to worry about lifetime exposure to radiation from CT Scans. Steve's friends made a documentary of his dream 'Dying to Do Letterman'.
They have won a few awards and are now able to see if they can get into the Academy Awards. And I need to go see it. I want to know how someone with cancer manages to hold on to their dreams and keep pursuing their goals. I want to see the humorous side of cancer diagnosis. I want them to get an Oscar for showing humor in life with cancer. And I want to see how Steve attains his dream - well I assume he does. I don't know. I haven't seen the movie yet and I'm dying to know.
I do know that they have raised the $37,000 they needed and that Steve was diagnosed in 2005 and he is still around now (which shows doctors don't always have such a good grasp on math).
Now I want them to have a showing around here - and I know the perfect theater and can help send a bunch of us cancer people their way. What ever you do, don't tell me the ending! I can put it on my bucket list.
I was allowed to take a shower and it hurt! Ow, ow, ow. More ice. I am glad I took it with Walter here. Now I have an excuse to be lazy today. The movie for the day is Little Miss Sunshine - its supposed to put the fun in dysfunctional families.
