Breast Cancer Awareness month - Day 3
Day 3. Who gets metastatic breast cancer?
No one brings metastatic disease on themselves. The sad truth is that anyone who has had an earlier stage of breast cancer can have a metastatic recurrence and some women have metastatic disease on their initial diagnosis of cancer--despite mammograms and early detection!
A metastatic recurrence (or initial diagnosis, for that matter) doesn't happen because someone didn't take care of themselves or because they didn't get treatment - despite what the pink ribbon people would like us to believe, early detection does not guarantee a cure. Metastatic breast cancer can occur years after a person's original diagnosis and successful treatment, checkups and annual mammograms, or in my case, it can be the initial diagnosis.
I struggle with how strident I want to be in all of this. Part of me wants to stand by the pink ribbons and yell, "what about us?!"...People don't die from early stage breast cancer, they die from metastatic breast cancer and the number of deaths from breast cancer hasn't dropped a whole lot in the last 40 years!!! (Metavivor.org). How is this acceptable? And then there's part of me that wonders if I really want to expend any energy on yelling and to be honest, I think my chemo brain hinders me sometimes. I am looking at what I've written and am wondering if it makes sense...and I just can't decide! (so I'm just going to publish, as is, and hope it isn't muddled )
No one brings metastatic disease on themselves. The sad truth is that anyone who has had an earlier stage of breast cancer can have a metastatic recurrence and some women have metastatic disease on their initial diagnosis of cancer--despite mammograms and early detection!
A metastatic recurrence (or initial diagnosis, for that matter) doesn't happen because someone didn't take care of themselves or because they didn't get treatment - despite what the pink ribbon people would like us to believe, early detection does not guarantee a cure. Metastatic breast cancer can occur years after a person's original diagnosis and successful treatment, checkups and annual mammograms, or in my case, it can be the initial diagnosis.
I struggle with how strident I want to be in all of this. Part of me wants to stand by the pink ribbons and yell, "what about us?!"...People don't die from early stage breast cancer, they die from metastatic breast cancer and the number of deaths from breast cancer hasn't dropped a whole lot in the last 40 years!!! (Metavivor.org). How is this acceptable? And then there's part of me that wonders if I really want to expend any energy on yelling and to be honest, I think my chemo brain hinders me sometimes. I am looking at what I've written and am wondering if it makes sense...and I just can't decide! (so I'm just going to publish, as is, and hope it isn't muddled )
It makes sense, don't worry. You told me something I didn't know - that dear rates hadn't gone down in 40 years?
ReplyDeleteSometimes I will be talking and just stop, because the thought is just gone. Happening mire...but it does make things interesting :)
ReplyDeleteOne site says 40 (metavivors), another says 20 (MBCN.org)...another says since the pink ribbon campaign began (30 years or so)...still too long.
ReplyDelete