MBC Awareness Day 2018
Today I am grateful for safe travels, a good experience overall, and beautiful natural surroundings for the school trip I helped chaperone. I am also grateful for my fellow chaperones, students and their energy, snow, and warm layers of clothing.
Add to that this morning time with our family. My stepson Arthur, his wife Alyssa, and son Aaron are here visiting. This is treasured time because they live several hours away. We went to Sam's football game last night, a cold October evening perfect for football. Sam's team won and is now 6-1, enjoying the best season the school has had in years.
Many blessings, new memories. cherished time. Always lurking though, not far from the forefront of my mind, is the specter of metastatic breast cancer. Today is Metastatic Breast Cancer Awareness Day. I have written numerous posts about BC and it's advanced version-MBC.
Cancer that stays in the breast is not deadly. But when it leaves the breast and spreads to other areas of the body, known as metastatic breast cancer, it kills. And it continues to take over 40,000 lives annually in the United States alone.
On this MBC Awareness Day 2018, for the first time I have a direct family member living with MBC.
My sister Mary Jo was diagnosed with MBC in March. She has endured oral chemotherapy and now four rounds of IV chemo. There has been good news at times, tough news at others. Her next scan is around the corner and will yield information that will help her make her next choices regarding treatment.
She has had many difficult days, some hopeful ones, lots of nausea, exhaustion, and I can only imagine the myriad range of emotions and thoughts. Many of us are sending continued thoughts, prayers, energy, well wishes to her and her family. We have visited, sent notes and packages, wondered what would be next. None of us are in her shoes though. We can't know and feel what she knows and feels.
Here are some previous posts I have written, and in them are opportunities for each of us to help bring a cure closer:
Awareness, Advocacy, Action: Keep them all growing . . . from Oct. 31, 2017
MET UP, Metavivor, and MBC Awareness Day from Oct, 11, 2016
And here is the ribbon for MBC:
In these posts are several links to various organizations and studies. Consider joining a study pool, doing some health surveys, or donating to the organization we choose to donate to--Metavivor. Donations go directly to research.
I sit here this morning able to describe myself as a breast cancer patient with NED (no evidence of disease). Our sister Zita is also NED with her BC. About a third of women initially diagnosed with early-stage BC will go on to develop advanced cancer. That stat just played out among the three of us. Will there be more MBC, more BC among our other sisters? We don't know. Will Mary Jo continue to respond to treatment, or will she face very challenging decisions sooner rather than later?We don't know.
What we do know is that today is a gift for all of us. Be present in it and spend it well.
Thinking of you today and every day Mary Jo, and all with MBC.
Add to that this morning time with our family. My stepson Arthur, his wife Alyssa, and son Aaron are here visiting. This is treasured time because they live several hours away. We went to Sam's football game last night, a cold October evening perfect for football. Sam's team won and is now 6-1, enjoying the best season the school has had in years.
Many blessings, new memories. cherished time. Always lurking though, not far from the forefront of my mind, is the specter of metastatic breast cancer. Today is Metastatic Breast Cancer Awareness Day. I have written numerous posts about BC and it's advanced version-MBC.
Cancer that stays in the breast is not deadly. But when it leaves the breast and spreads to other areas of the body, known as metastatic breast cancer, it kills. And it continues to take over 40,000 lives annually in the United States alone.
On this MBC Awareness Day 2018, for the first time I have a direct family member living with MBC.
My sister Mary Jo was diagnosed with MBC in March. She has endured oral chemotherapy and now four rounds of IV chemo. There has been good news at times, tough news at others. Her next scan is around the corner and will yield information that will help her make her next choices regarding treatment.
She has had many difficult days, some hopeful ones, lots of nausea, exhaustion, and I can only imagine the myriad range of emotions and thoughts. Many of us are sending continued thoughts, prayers, energy, well wishes to her and her family. We have visited, sent notes and packages, wondered what would be next. None of us are in her shoes though. We can't know and feel what she knows and feels.
Here are some previous posts I have written, and in them are opportunities for each of us to help bring a cure closer:
Awareness, Advocacy, Action: Keep them all growing . . . from Oct. 31, 2017
MET UP, Metavivor, and MBC Awareness Day from Oct, 11, 2016
And here is the ribbon for MBC:
In these posts are several links to various organizations and studies. Consider joining a study pool, doing some health surveys, or donating to the organization we choose to donate to--Metavivor. Donations go directly to research.
I sit here this morning able to describe myself as a breast cancer patient with NED (no evidence of disease). Our sister Zita is also NED with her BC. About a third of women initially diagnosed with early-stage BC will go on to develop advanced cancer. That stat just played out among the three of us. Will there be more MBC, more BC among our other sisters? We don't know. Will Mary Jo continue to respond to treatment, or will she face very challenging decisions sooner rather than later?We don't know.
What we do know is that today is a gift for all of us. Be present in it and spend it well.
Thinking of you today and every day Mary Jo, and all with MBC.
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