One woman has shared how this picture helped her.
An American woman has posted a picture of some lemons to help other women identify signs of breast cancer.
Every few weeks you probably get a chain mail of some sorts into your inbox on Facebook. It will ask you to post a status about your bra colour, your favourite fruit or simply post a heart on your wall, and it will state that it raises awareness for breast cancer.
Erin Smith Chieze has spoken out about why she will not be sharing these types of ‘games’ on Facebook.
”In the past few days, I have received quite a few private messages about a “game” going around where you post a heart, then you are secretly supposed to state it is for breast cancer awareness. This is my response to all of these messages.” She said.
She then said that real, practical information is the only thing that helps to raise awareness.
”Someone once posted a picture on Facebook of what breast cancer can look like. Not feel, but look like. In December of 2015 when I saw an indentation that looked like one of those pictures, I instantly knew I had breast cancer. I tried to feel for a
”In December of 2015 when I saw an indentation that looked like one of those pictures, I instantly knew I had breast cancer. I tried to feel for a tumor, but my tumor was non palpable. I was diagnosed with breast cancer 5 days later and with stage 4 the following month.” She said of her own diagnosis.
”A heart did nothing for awareness. I knew what breast cancer was. I knew all about self exams, but a picture of what to look for keyed me into knowing I had a terminal disease. We need to give REAL information, not cute hearts. Without having seen a picture randomly with real information, I wouldn’t have known what to look for. Do us a favor, stop playing games with my life and start truly helping people. Metastatic breast cancer treatment research and real awareness.” She said.
”PLEASE, stop playing games that do not actually promote awareness, they often cause people to tune out anything that might even mention the word awareness. So if you truly want to help people WITH cancer, or those who will GET cancer, share photos like this one.” She added, along with the picture.
The picture, which is part of the know your lemons campaign, gives a clear guide about when you should be concerned regarding your breasts.
So perhaps the next time you are invited to share a random colour or fruit as a status on Facebook, share something practical and useful like this, instead.
