Today is Metastatic Breast Cancer Awareness Day
Today I am grateful for a good training run with Darcy yesterday. The conditions were ideal as we covered about 18 miles. I am also grateful for the positive experience Sam had with his football team this fall.
Today is the 5th annual Metastatic Breast Cancer Awareness Day.
Metastatic is not a separate type of cancer, it is what happens to some cancers, including many that start out early-stage. Metastatic cancer is cancer that spreads beyond the initial site to bones, the brain, and other organs. It is the cancer that kills. I refer to breast cancer here, but it can happen with any cancer. Cancer that stays in the breast is not deadly. It only becomes deadly when it spreads to other parts of the body. And that happens in about 30% of the women and men initially diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer. It is MBC that kills about 40,000 women and men each year, similar to the death rates of 30 years ago. This is why we need to step up our actions, why the pace of research needs to be faster (with our help as research subjects) and why we need to not get swept away by a misleading tide of pink in October.
I appreciate the words of bloggers Nancy Stordahl at Nancy's Point and AnneMarie Ciccarella at CHEMOBRAIN. . . In the Fog regarding Metastatic Breast Cancer Awareness Day. They are both bloggers that I regularly follow and that I respect. I also appreciate the work of organizations like the Metastatic Breast Cancer Network and METAvivor. Visit them at http://mbcn.org/ and http://www.metavivor.org/
But I am absolutely floored by the words of Lisa Bonchek Adams. Lisa received a Stage IV MBC diagnosis in October of 2012. Her blog is both informative and genuine. Her poetry will tear your heart out. She gives us all a better understanding of what it is like to live with such a diagnosis.Check her out here.
MBC is scary as hell to ponder. It is one of my biggest fears for my sisters, my friends with BC, other breast cancer patients I know, and myself. But I choose to let that fear catalyze me, not paralyze me. It also serves to remind me that today is the day that matters most. Am I grateful for today and my health? You bet I am!
Today is the 5th annual Metastatic Breast Cancer Awareness Day.
Metastatic is not a separate type of cancer, it is what happens to some cancers, including many that start out early-stage. Metastatic cancer is cancer that spreads beyond the initial site to bones, the brain, and other organs. It is the cancer that kills. I refer to breast cancer here, but it can happen with any cancer. Cancer that stays in the breast is not deadly. It only becomes deadly when it spreads to other parts of the body. And that happens in about 30% of the women and men initially diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer. It is MBC that kills about 40,000 women and men each year, similar to the death rates of 30 years ago. This is why we need to step up our actions, why the pace of research needs to be faster (with our help as research subjects) and why we need to not get swept away by a misleading tide of pink in October.
I appreciate the words of bloggers Nancy Stordahl at Nancy's Point and AnneMarie Ciccarella at CHEMOBRAIN. . . In the Fog regarding Metastatic Breast Cancer Awareness Day. They are both bloggers that I regularly follow and that I respect. I also appreciate the work of organizations like the Metastatic Breast Cancer Network and METAvivor. Visit them at http://mbcn.org/ and http://www.metavivor.org/
But I am absolutely floored by the words of Lisa Bonchek Adams. Lisa received a Stage IV MBC diagnosis in October of 2012. Her blog is both informative and genuine. Her poetry will tear your heart out. She gives us all a better understanding of what it is like to live with such a diagnosis.Check her out here.
MBC is scary as hell to ponder. It is one of my biggest fears for my sisters, my friends with BC, other breast cancer patients I know, and myself. But I choose to let that fear catalyze me, not paralyze me. It also serves to remind me that today is the day that matters most. Am I grateful for today and my health? You bet I am!
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