Metastatic Breast Cancer
I’ve wanted to add this page to my site for quite some time. I don’t know why it took me so long…
When you hear the words you have cancer, you think you’ve heard the worst, but of course you haven’t. Hearing you are stage IV is far worse. Hearing you will be in treatment for the rest of your life is far worse. Living with uncertainty on a whole different level is far worse.
Even talking about mets is hard. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t talk about it. It’s even more important to talk about the hard stuff.
I lost my mother to mets in 2008. I lost my friend Rachel in 2012. I’ve lost others as well. Perhaps you’ve lost a loved one too. Perhaps you are living with mets yourself.
Living with mets is hard. Finding support and resources shouldn’t be. This page is my effort to help raise awareness for those interested in learning more about it. It’s a work in progress and I welcome suggestions, links, comments and whatever else anyone can come up with to add. I would love to hear from you about what you think might be helpful, especially if you are living with mets.
Statistics say that today there are about 150,000 people living with metastatic breast cancer. Statistics also say 40,000 people die of metastatic breast cancer each year. This number hasn’t fluctuated much of late despite the pink hoopla which seems to contradict this fact. We can’t quietly sweep these numbers away. We can’t neatly package them in pink.
Facts don’t lie. Get the facts about mets at METAvivor.org or mbcn.org.
What else can you and I do?
- Listen to the voices of those living with mets; their stories matter and need to be heard.
- Read blogs written by those living with mets. I’ve included some links below.
- Specify that your donation dollars go to mets research. Tell those who will listen that 30 percent for 30 percent is entirely reasonable and completely necessary.
- Speak up when you hear someone say, “No one dies of breast cancer anymore.”
- Don’t stay away from someone living with mets because you’re unsure about what to say or do. Just being there and listening will always be enough.
Loneliness and a sense of isolation are very real for those living with mets. No one can completely change this.
However, it’s unacceptable to me whenever I hear someone living with mets say she/he feels as if she’s/he’s been left standing in the shadows or on the sidelines, abandoned, not listened to, at fault for having mets, or worse, invisible – even erased.
This can change. This must change.
Join me, along with so many others, in bringing mets awareness and the need for more mets-focused research to the forefront.
Be a #fearless advocate. Be a #fearless friend.
A few resources are:
Metastatic Breast Cancer Network
Here are a few blogs written by individuals directly impacted by mbc:
Dancing with Cancer, Living with Mets
Long Time Living: Living with Breast Cancer
Please let me know what you feel should be added to this page (or if you have mets and write a blog) via Facebook, email or Twitter as comments aren’t an option on pages for me at this time. Sorry about that. And thanks!
Please follow me on Twitter and like Nancy’s Point on Facebook!
Join me on Facebook every Mets Monday and help continue bringing metastatic breast cancer out of the closet.
