There seems to be a designated day for almost everything. It's British Pie Week, which is an easy enough cause to get behind and gives us the perfect excuse to indulge in some hip-expanding pastry delights. Crank's Homity Pie is my top choice here.
But other causes are even more worth making a song and dance about. Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month is this month. My friend @AmieDeana told me about it a couple of weeks ago. She's an official representative for The Eve Appeal, an important charity specifically addressing gynaecological cancers.
According to an entry posted on Wikipedia by The British Gynaecological Cancer Society, gynaecological cancers are the fourth most common type. Most of us have heard of cervical cancer and ovarian cancer. Endometric cancer, uterine cancer and vulvar cancer are less known. Needless to say, the effects of getting any of them can be life-threatening. Yet the fact that there are three types of female gynaecological cancers few of us have even heard of - let alone know their symptoms - suggests there's a lot of awareness raising needed.
Sadly, Amie's reasons for being involved in The Eve Appeal are very personal: she lost her mum to ovarian cancer. This weekend she's hosting an event under the banner MakeTime4Tea - a fundraising day of pampering, clothes swaps and more. Many such events are taking place this month in a bid to increase awareness as well as increase the charity's funds.
And if you don't know someone hosting a maketime4tea event, you can help the cause by buying hand creams and lotions from Urban Retreat.
Most of all, please take a look at The Eve Appeal website and find out what they do and why. Learning about these cancers and how they can affect your fertility as well as your general health is a must if you're a young woman.
And if you don't think it's worth having that smear test you got a letter about, take it from me: it is. Routine smear tests more than 10 years apart caught my early stage cervical cancer and (thankfully non-cancerous) ovarian cysts.
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