An Early Start to MBC Awareness Day 2019
Today I am grateful for the personal journey of meditation and healing, and how going inward helps me find more compassion for self and others.
October 13 each year since 2009 has been set aside as Metastatic Breast Cancer Awareness Day. It’s at least something in a month awash in pink. It’s not nearly enough for the disease that many people can’t define and that 40,000 still die from each year. Metastatic breast cancer is breast cancer that has spread to other parts of the body, most often the lungs, bones, and brain, and for which there is no cure.
But at least it is something.
I am not stepping into activist role this year like I sometimes do. I am actively grieving the death of my sister Mary Jo from MBC on June 16 of this year. She was two months shy of her 62nd birthday.
It is different for me this year when one of those 40,000 deaths is someone near and dear to me. The grief is fresh and raw. The memory of my last visit with Mary Jo lingers. The images in my mind that mark her decline and death are sharp edges. I will continue to grieve, and to honor Mary Jo and all who have died of MBC.
This number of annual deaths has been pretty stationery for the last three decades. People are often surprised to hear that. You can read last year's post , and follow some of the links in it, to get ideas and actions to help the cause and find a cure.
Another way to help is to follow the trail of the money you donate and see that a bulk of it is going where it is needed most--research. METAvivor is the organization we choose to donate to when we can.
MBC Awareness deserves more than one day. Mary Jo is remembered daily. I am posting this early because I will be taking a blog break until early next week. First, I have a work commitment and then a family one. I will traverse many miles and likely return with some fresh writing.
What can we each do over the next days to raise awareness about MBC? Maybe the awareness starts
with our own knowledge. Maybe it starts by bringing up a topic many people would rather not talk about, in the thick of this devastating disease.
Mary Jo, her immediate family and friends, and my entire family have sure been in the thick of its devastation the last year.
October 13 each year since 2009 has been set aside as Metastatic Breast Cancer Awareness Day. It’s at least something in a month awash in pink. It’s not nearly enough for the disease that many people can’t define and that 40,000 still die from each year. Metastatic breast cancer is breast cancer that has spread to other parts of the body, most often the lungs, bones, and brain, and for which there is no cure.
But at least it is something.
I am not stepping into activist role this year like I sometimes do. I am actively grieving the death of my sister Mary Jo from MBC on June 16 of this year. She was two months shy of her 62nd birthday.
It is different for me this year when one of those 40,000 deaths is someone near and dear to me. The grief is fresh and raw. The memory of my last visit with Mary Jo lingers. The images in my mind that mark her decline and death are sharp edges. I will continue to grieve, and to honor Mary Jo and all who have died of MBC.
This number of annual deaths has been pretty stationery for the last three decades. People are often surprised to hear that. You can read last year's post , and follow some of the links in it, to get ideas and actions to help the cause and find a cure.
Another way to help is to follow the trail of the money you donate and see that a bulk of it is going where it is needed most--research. METAvivor is the organization we choose to donate to when we can.
MBC Awareness deserves more than one day. Mary Jo is remembered daily. I am posting this early because I will be taking a blog break until early next week. First, I have a work commitment and then a family one. I will traverse many miles and likely return with some fresh writing.
What can we each do over the next days to raise awareness about MBC? Maybe the awareness starts
with our own knowledge. Maybe it starts by bringing up a topic many people would rather not talk about, in the thick of this devastating disease.
Mary Jo, her immediate family and friends, and my entire family have sure been in the thick of its devastation the last year.
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