The Anti-Cancer Campaign

You know all those anti-drug slogans that you’ve seen and heard over the years “users are losers”, “just say no”, "friends don’t let friends drive drunk”, “say no to drugs, say yes to tacos”?  These are (mostly) effective ways to keep people from trying drugs, right?  However, I find the anti-drug campaigns with pictures to be much more effective.  The pictures of the heroin addict…at the morgue, and the anti-drug slogan from the 80’s with the eggs (cue picture of a nice whole egg “this is your brain”, cue picture of the egg frying in a pan “this is your brain on drugs.”)  My favorites are the before and after photos of meth addicts.  The” before drugs” photo shows a lovely young woman with a full set of teeth showing through her lively smile.  The “after drugs” photo shows a woman who looks as if she has aged 20 years during her 2 years as a meth addict.  She is no longer smiling but you can kind of still see her teeth, and the teeth that are still there are disgusting.  Her once youthful face is now sunken in and full of nasty scabs.  I don’t know what happened to her hair.  And of course the eyes, she now has the trademark meth addict crazy eyes.  These photos scare me enough to never ever try meth.  I find it to be a very effective campaign. 

I look back at pictures of myself before cancer and it reminds me of these anti-drug campaigns.  When I see a side by side photo it’s like an anti-cancer campaign.  My “before cancer” picture shows a young woman with a head full of hair, a healthy glow, and cheery demeanor.  The young woman is beautiful and has a full life ahead of her.  The “with cancer” photo shows a pale, very run down, hairless, pajama wearing version of the same girl in the before picture!  You wonder how a person’s appearance can be so dramatically different.  Like the meth addict photos, it’s frightening.  I could be the anti-cancer campaign poster girl.  Do you see this woman?  Do you want to be like her?  Then just say NO to cancer.  The problem here, of course, is that you can choose whether or not to do meth but with cancer you don’t have a choice.  Cancer chooses you.

Looking on the Bright Side…Maybe I can at least use this to scare people into doing self-breast exams.

 My vision of the Anti-Cancer Campaign Posters

(It's meant to be funny, so go ahead and laugh.
I found bad photos and made them worse)

This is your life...this is your life with cancer

Don't let your friends get cancer

Just say NO to cancer

 

 Do your self breast exams...or this could be you