When I started my blog a few years back, obviously, I knew I would write about breast cancer. I also knew I had to write about loss. My mother died from metastatic breast cancer, so how could that experience not be part of my writings? Still, from time to time I wonder, how do I keep writing about breast cancer and loss without it becoming too depressing? After all, breast cancer is a string of losses. How do I keep writing about such serious matters in a way in which people might still want to read what I write?
I decided all I could do was share the truth, my truth and that’s what I still try to do. I believe in truth telling, even when it’s hard and some weeks it’s really hard. Some months it’s really hard. For me, February is one of those hard months.
I’ve been thinking about my mother and my good friend Rachel Cheetam Moro even more than usual this month. Even after all this time, sometimes doing so makes me terribly, terribly sad and the tears come. Sometimes doing so makes me feel like screaming and the ranting comes. And sometimes it makes me feel like doing both.
On the one hand, I want to scream about the unfairness and cruelty of metastatic breast cancer. I want to shout so others will pay attention and grieve as I do about the losses that keep piling up.
I want to shout that:
We can no longer accept excuses for our lack of humane treatments. Sometimes it’s hard to tell which killed the person, the cancer or the treatment.
We cannot settle for minuscule amounts of funds raised being spent on mets research.
We cannot be satisfied with pink ribbons, pink merchandise, races and walks.
We cannot be quiet when it seems as if breast cancer has become accepted, almost as if it is a normal thing.
We cannot be quiet when breast cancer is portrayed as a fight you can win if you just stay positive and fight hard enough.
We cannot accept that 40,000 deaths from breast cancer per year in the USA alone is dramatic progress, as a recent headline suggested. For real numbers, real truths, read this analysis written by my friend, Ann Marie Ciccarella. Yes, sometimes headlines “scream” too, but not necessarily with accurate information.
During the past few days, sometimes I did not feel like screaming or shouting.
Sometimes I felt like weeping.
And I did.
I wept for my mother, for Rachel and Susan, for Cheryl, for Donna, for Barb, for Shelli and for too many others as well. I wept for all the women (and men) who have died from metastatic breast cancer, ones I have known and ones I have not.
But in the end, my tears and my discontent do not matter. The facts of metastatic breast cancer matter.
Weeping will not change things. Ranting or shouting in frustration will not change things.
We need meaningful action to change things.
If you are as appalled as I am and do not agree that we have made dramatic progress regarding the still staggering number of lives lost each year to metastatic breast cancer, join the discussion. Keep visiting METAvivor Research & Support, Inc. and other sites dedicated to mets awareness for more information. Donate to a charity that focuses on research, specifically mets research. Expect and demand accountability from whatever charities you do donate to.
Do not settle.
Do not keep quiet.
Even when it’s hard, even when it makes others uncomfortable, even when it makes you uncomfortable; keep talking. Keep writing. Keep sharing.
Keep sharing truths about metastatic breast cancer.
Because as always,
Breast cancer awareness without mets awareness, isn’t awareness at all.
How or where do you share your cancer truths?
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