Enough Awareness, We Need A Cure

Today is Metastatic Breast Cancer Awareness Day.

Why should you care? Why do I care so much?

40,000 women and men die of breast cancer yearly, and those numbers are probably low. My own mother's death certificate doesn't list her cause of death as metastatic breast cancer. But that's what killed her. 

It's the ONLY kind of breast cancer that kills. If a woman or man dies of breast cancer, it's because it was stage 4, metastatic. Their family might not say that. Their death certificate might not say that.  But that is what killed them.  

You do not need breasts to get stage 4, metastatic breast cancer. You could have had your breast tissue removed and still get metastatic breast cancer.

20-30% of women with early stage breast cancer - and that is women like me - will develop stage 4. They could have done EVERYTHING right  - surgery, chemo, radiation, Tamoxifen - but 5, 10, 15 years later the cancer will show up in their lungs, bones, liver, or brain. There is no way to prevent this that we know of. We try with surgery, chemo, radiation, and drugs like Tamoxifen but that doesn't always work. Early detection doesn't save lives. 

6-10% of women are diagnosed with Stage 4 initially. This means that they never had an early stage breast cancer diagnosis.

If you have Stage 4, metastatic cancer, you are in treatment for the rest of your life. You will NEVER be cured. You will never be DONE. You might do really really well, get a nice break. You might find one treatment that worked great doesn't work anymore.  There's no way to tell. You might live for the average of 33 months, or you might live for decades. It's a crappy crapshoot.

Everyone knows about breast cancer. It's no longer something we whisper about. We no longer need people to be aware of breast cancer. We need people to know the reality. It's not always a happy pink story and a "survivor".

Why do I care? I care because I am the daughter of a woman who died of stage 4, metastatic breast cancer, because I had stage one breast cancer, because my sisters are dying and we are telling them to have hope and courage and faith - and that is MEANINGLESS unless we are going to find a CURE.

So, this is depressing and heavy but, like, what can YOU do? I'm glad you asked.

Educate yourself. The more you know, the more you understand.  Read what other breast cancer activists have written. Follow some kick ass Stage 4 women on Facebook. Listen to not only the experts on this disease but also the voices of the people living with it. Their voices matter.  

Educate others. A friend of mine sat down and had a chat with his school aged son about why pink for awareness is useless and how to better support women and men who have been diagnosed. Another friend speaks up when she sees pink ribbons waving. You don't have to have had breast cancer or Stage 4 to say something.  Advocating for Stage 4, metastatic awareness is something anyone can do. Share your knowledge.

Donate. An average of 2% of breast cancer money goes to research for a cure. Less than 1% in some very big organizations. There's effective treatments for early stage breast cancer, and that's great.  Women like me are living longer. But we still have this huge number of women and men who are being diagnosed with stage 4 initially or after years of being "cancer free". So donate to Stage 4 research.  I'm a big fan of METAvivor

I hope this post gave you some new information on Stage 4, metastatic breast cancer. I hope you if you come across something breast cancer related and it makes you go "hmm" and you want to bounce it off someone, you reach out to me. I hope awareness spreads so fast that I never need to do another one of these posts. I hope we find a cure. 

Here's some links for further reading.

13 Things Everyone Should Know About Metastatic Breast Cancer


Ten Things Wrong With the Pink Ribbon


Pink Marketing for Breast Cancer; Where's the Payoff?