Blessed by the Potato

Just got this in the old work email:

Colleagues,

October is Ultrasound Awareness Month and I would like to take this opportunity to recognize our Ultrasound Technologists (Sonographers) for their contribution and efforts to the organization over the past year.

Nope. That is it. First it was a proliferation of ridiculous days, the pinnacle of which was the self-parodying Talk Like A Pirate Day. Then some things started getting months: Prostate Cancer took November after Breast Cancer grabbed October. Kind of a dickish move: there are only 12 months and December is totally Christmas’ bitch so there’s really only 11 for all the causes in the world to play with. Cancer is kind of big so sure, it can take a month (at least Ovarian decided to share October with Breast), though 2 is really pushing it.

But Ultrasound Awareness Month? Nope, no it isn’t. That is not a thing. Not even if you try to slip it in when the month is almost over and get it to share with Breast Cancer, Halloween, and changing leaves. I don’t even think ultrasound merits a day: let’s give them 35 seconds of ultrasonic screeching at lunch and get on with our lives. Come on, ultrasonographers get to take pictures of people’s babies. How much more recognition, appreciation, and job satisfaction do you need than a weepy mom-to-be finding out the sex of their bundle-of-joy-in-progress?

I mean, there’s trying to get recognition for a group of people who likely deserve it, which is great. But a month for ultrasonographers is just so far beyond the pale. It’s gone way beyond standing up to tout accomplishments, sharing stories of determination, and being recognized for hard work and contributions to being a dickhead braggart “hey look at me I’m totally better than all of you! Appreciate me! For a whole month!” Yes ultrasound helps deliver more effective health care, but nurses only get a day and they have to clean up shit* and injure their backs lifting people. Do you think you’re better than nurses — 31 times better than nurses? Moms, dads, secretaries, the entire organized labour movement, and motherfucking veterans only get one day each. Get over yourselves, god.

Damn those cocky sonographers and their ridiculous professional association’s ambitions.

Seriously, at what point do we get to say “nope, no it isn’t” when someone tells us it’s X appreciation/awareness month? At what point do we have a moral responsibility to stand up to a self-interested trade association trying to take over a whole month? Of course, Prostate Cancer Awareness Month (November) is also shared with Alzheimer’s, Lung Cancer, Diabetes, COPD (yes, lung gets two entries), Financial Literacy, and an insane approach to novel writing, which kind of underlines my point that it can’t be all of these things so this notion of a month dedicated to awareness is a little ridiculous. Let’s also consider what foolishness a dedicated month of something gets us: if it weren’t for Julius and Augustus Caesar awareness months, September through December would still be the seventh through tenth months of the year, and their names would make sense.

* – By which I mean actual human feces, but also urine, blood, pus, and other sundry smelly fluids.