Breast Cancer Awareness Month

This is the month of pink. Everywhere you look you’ll see pink, pink and more pink. As you probably know, October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. It’s the month where we make people aware of the harshness of the disease that so many women have to endure all over the world. 

To me, I love the month of October and I love the idea of dedicating a whole month to making people aware and raising money for such a good cause. Although part of me starts to wonder if the whole month is beginning to lose a little bit of it’s meaning.

In the beginning, it was all about raising the awareness for this cancer that didn’t have a cure and was affecting women everywhere, and now you see more of just all the pink and less of the explanation and talk of the meaning behind it all.

All month you see NFL football players wearing pink somewhere on your uniform and clothing brands come out with a pink line of clothing, but I’m starting to notice it being talked about less. The only time i’ve really seen it talked about so far this month is doing a pink out for high school football games. 

I love all the walks/runs that they do to raise awareness and allowing people to make teams in memory of people they know who have had breast cancer and been fortunate enough to overcome it or for the people who haven’t been as lucky is great as well. Maybe it’s just the city that I live in, but I have noticed a decrease in talk about Breast Cancer Awareness Month this year and I don’t like it, I think this month should really be recognized as it has in the past and I don’t want to see it fade.

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Misty Upham Tragedy

Many people know Misty Upham for her starring role in the 2008 film Frozen River. On October 5, 2014 the family of Misty shared via social media that they had not seen or heard from Misty since the previous weekend and that they were concerned for her welfare as she has had both mental and physical health issues in the past.

At the time of the announcement, the police did not open up a case or declare Upham as a missing person due to occasions in the past where they have been called during her disappearance but she had always been located soon after. I think that the police approached this the wrong way in this situation. 

They said that they never opened up a case because she had always been found within days after opening the case but this time by the time the family had contacted the local police department, Misty had already been missing for almost a week. The police also should not have just gone off of the previous record. If they would have not have gone off of what has happened in the past and opened up a missing persons case then you can’t help but wonder if they would have found Misty alive.

They found Misty on October 16, 2014 at the bottom of a cliff in the middle of a wooded area. She was discovered by her family during a small search party that they had organized with a few other members of their tribe. People believe that Misty’s death was an accident, that she tripped or slipped and fell down the cliff and that her life could have been saved if there had been a more open and thorough search done by the police department.

The family of Misty Upham is now speaking out about the lack of involvement they received from the local police department and telling people that if the department had gotten involved like it is their duty to do, they could have prevented Misty’s death. They have accused the department of lying and saying that they didn’t have evidence that pointed to Misty being a missing person when they really did and have told the media that the police department decided not to get involved because of past abuse to Misty.

I hope that the whole situation could have been completely avoided and I hope that they are able to get this figured out because I would never want something like this to happen to anyone else or anyone else’s family have to go through what Misty’s family went through. R.I.P. Misty Upham.

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Ebola Paranoia

Lately, everyone has been extremely worried about a disease that’s been in Africa for awhile, but it just now making an appearance in the United States. That disease is Ebola. Ebola is a disease that in the later stages causes it's victims to bleed both internally and externally. Most of the time, the early symptoms are a lot like that of the common cold. A fever, sore throat, headache etc. 

The first reports of Ebola being present in the US were of Thomas Eric Duncan, a  Liberian who came to the United States to visit family in Dallas. Duncan passed away from the Ebola virus on October 8, but not before he transferred the disease to two nurses that were working his case during his stay at the hospital. Both nurses, Nina Pham and Amber Vinson tested positive for the Ebola virus days after complaining of a fever. 

Ebola is terrifying people around the nation frankly because of the fact that we have absolutely no idea how to cure it and it can be spread so quickly and in so many different ways. It’s also scary the fact that the early symptoms can easily be mistaken for  just the common flu and can be misdiagnosed unless medical  professionals are made aware of any previous exposure.

Now we have the big debate over the fact of pets. Many people think that pets are transferring the virus somehow. When nurse Nina Pham was diagnosed, her dog was put into quarantine and now they are debating whether they should put the dog to sleep so they don’t have to possibly risk the transfer of the virus to other people. This news has brought so many people into the debate such as animal rights activists who are trying to keep the dog as well as any other pets from being “murdered.”

It’s really sad that it has to go one way or the other. We either have to end the life of an innocent animal in order to eliminate risk, and if we don’t then we take the chance of losing the lives of many innocent people. So it all comes down to the one hard choice of which to choose. I think that the people in a position of power will choose the innocent lives of humans over innocent animals any day, but either decision they make will have people against it and leave people upset.

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