Wear It Pink

Every year, the charity Breast Cancer Now devotes the month of October to raising awareness of Breast Cancer and fundraising to support people living with or beyond this diagnosis. This year is no exception. In this blog I talk about how I became one of the campaign’s poster people, & why.

Alt Text: A selfie pose of a white middle-aged woman sitting in a wheelchair, in the garden. She has brown shoulder-length hair flecked with grey strands. She is wearing a small diamante headband with a silver heart, a small silver nose ring, pink sunglasses shaped in pink hearts, & a cape with pink plastic sequins with a silver top underneath. She is smiling.

I know people have mixed feelings about designated days & designated colours for raising awareness & fundraising. Here’s my take on it:

I know that in reality Breast Cancer isn’t remotely pink & fluffy – it’s brutal, painful & terrifying. But Wear It Pink gives the public an opportunity to come together under one unifying slogan & colour to raise awareness of Breast Cancer – to highlight the symptoms & signs to look out for, bring attention to the different treatments & to fundraise.

Here’s why I’m involved in this year’s Wear It Pink campaign:

I’m involved because it gives me an opportunity to share my lived experience of being disabled & living with a cancer diagnosis. In general, the representation of disabled people who live with or beyond Breast Cancer is still missing from the public domain. Just by talking about my current experience of trying to get an urgent MRI scan because of the NHS’ long waiting times in the UK on ‘X’ this week, got a reply from a professor of Teaching in Canada. This is what she tweeted in response: “There was a patient in my surgeon’s office who was a paraplegic (Tweeter’s own description, not mine) & I was struck by how much more difficult her recovery was going to be from a double mx” (MX = mastectomy).” Almost instantaneously there is a person from the other side of the world thinking about the specific experiences that disabled cancer patients have. And then more Tweeters join in as the tweet gets picked up & retweeted.

You can read my story on Breast Cancer Now’s website here: https://breastcancernow.org/wear-it-pink/about-wear-it-pink/meet-our-supporters/suzannes-story/

However, like everything I do, getting involved in the Wear It Pink campaign took some organising, both on my part and the Wear It Pink team. I responded to a social media post from Breast Cancer Now who were looking for volunteers to take part in their photo shoot for the campaign. I saw that the photo shoot was taking place not far from me in West London & that it was on a non-working day for me, so I signed up. I got a message back to welcome me & I could see that the team were really enthusiastic in having me on board, but the photo studio wasn’t wheelchair accessible. This was a bit of a blow to me because I worked with Breast Cancer Now’s The Show team to make the catwalk experience accessible & this was really successful. I guess it takes a while for the awareness of disabled people’s access requirements to filter through the whole organisation. To help, I put the Wear It Pink team in touch with The Show’s team. I’m hoping that a wheelchair accessible photo studio can be found next year (in fact, 2023’s The Show team used Street Studios in East London which are accessible).

By the time I contacted them, it was too late for the Wear It Pink team to find an alternative studio. However, they mentioned that there were other volunteers that couldn’t make that date, time & location too. When this happens, the Wear It Pink team sent me a huge bag full of goodies – pink flower headbands, pink sunglasses & pink scarves, as well as a photo ring light, to use as props for creating my own shoot at home. It just so happens that my favourite colour is pink, so it was easy to find clothes & shoes that fitted the brief. Very sweetly, the team asked if some of the photos could feature the pink sequinned cape that I have after seeing it on my social media. That made me happy because I love that cape & I can’t really wear it for many occasions (except clubbing!)

Photo Credit: Suzanne Bull MBE

Alt Text: A bag of pink coloured accessories laid out on top of a cream tote bag and a red plastic parcel bag, on a brown faux fur bedspread. There are two pairs of pink sunglasses – one is an oval design, the other shaped in pink hearts, two differently designed pink summer scarves (one has pink hearts all over it), a headband with pink faux roses & a white ring light.

Initially I set a couple of days aside for the photo shoot at the tail end of Winter. I took a series of selfies in my bedroom with my pink ‘skulls’ head wallpaper behind me. The oval sunglasses definitely made me look eccentric. But because the day was so dark, I felt the images were lacking in warmth, no matter how silly they were.

Alt Text: A selfie pose of a middle-aged white woman with brown shoulder-length hair which is flecked with grey strands, sitting against a wall which is wallpapered in pink ‘skull’ heads and butterflies. She is making a peace sign with one hand & her nails are painted red. She is smiling. She is wearing a pink cowboy hat, pink oval sunglasses, a small silver nose ring, deep pink lipstick & a pink leopard skin design sweatshirt.

Alt Text: A selfie pose of a white middle-aged woman with brown shoulder-length hair flecked with grey strands, sitting in a wheelchair in her bedroom. The background is blurred but the faint image of her bed & dressing table can be seen. She is wearing a pink cowboy hat, pink oval sunglasses, a small silver nose ring, a small silver hoop earring, bright pink lipstick, a pink scarf with darker pink hearts on it & a pink leopard skin sweatshirt.

I felt that it was better to do the photo-shoot outside but I had to wait more than a month for the weather to get warmer & sunnier. FInally, there was one sunny afternoon at the very end of March. Enlisting my partner’s help with the shoot this time, we headed out to find a quiet spot in the garden to take photos.

Photo Credit: Stephane Cony

Alt Text: A white middle-aged woman with brown-shoulder-length hair flecked with grey strands, sitting in a silver & purple wheelchair, in a garden. She is wearing a floppy straw hat, pink oval sunglasses, light pink lipstick, a necklace with three teal-coloured swallows, a pink midi dress with puffed sleeves, a silver watch, a silver ring on each hand with blue stones, pink lycra leggings & blue trainers. She has her hands folded across her lap & she is smiling. Behind her is a brick wall & plants in pots, hanging baskets & raised beds made out of railway sleepers.

Alt Text: A white middle-aged wheelchair user with brown shoulder-length hair flecked with grey strands, sitting in a silver & purple wheelchair, in a garden. She is wearing a diamante headband with a small silver heart, pink / brown round reading glasses, light pink lipstick, a silver watch, a cape with round pink sequins with a silver top underneath, pink lycra leggings & blue trainers. Behind her is a brick wall & plants in hanging baskets, pots & raised beds made of railway sleepers. She is smiling.

Our garden is our peaceful haven amidst city-living. We spent much of the Lockdown summer – the same time as when I received my Breast Cancer diagnosis – relaxing in the garden, enjoying nature return & watching blue skies without airline vapour trails (that was a surreal sight, wasn’t it?) We read books, we painted, we gardened & we chatted with our neighours over the fence. It felt right to return to our garden to do the photo shoot.

The shoot took less than an hour. This time my partner took shots that were brighter. I emailed the winter-time selfies & the shots from the garden back to the Wear It Pink team. I also posted their props back to them. I wrote a little story to accompany the photos for Breast Cancer Now’s website & it all went ‘live’ on 7th June 2024. I’ve had a great response to the story from my family, friends, colleagues, as well as from people all over the world that I’ve connected with on social media since my diagnosis. I can see the story prompting conversations & discussions over social media, which is fabulous. But even if my story just prompts one disabled person to get a breast lump checked, or a radiologist to think about how to support a wheelchair user whilst administering radiotherapy, then I think my involvement has been a success.

Once again, you can read my story on the Breast Cancer Now website here: https://breastcancernow.org/wear-it-pink/about-wear-it-pink/meet-our-supporters/suzannes-story/

October 2024 is Breast Cancer Now’s Wear It Pink month – more details here: https://breastcancernow.org/wear-it-pink/about-wear-it-pink/

If you can, & want to donate to Breast Cancer Now, please do so here: https://breastcancernow.org/