Letter from the President
Kelly Shanahan, M.D.
This month I’m typing this simultaneously exhausted and energized, just back from a week of advocacy. I spent 3 days in San Francisco representing METAvivor at a Genentech “Insight Exchange”, focused on oncology, and an “Experience Exchange”, with representatives from over 125 organizations representing diseases almost literally from A to Z. Then it was on a plane to Philadelphia for the 20th Living Beyond Breast Cancer (LBBC) MBC conference. For me, the LBBC conference is the place to connect with our community, to give and get hugs, to laugh, to cry, to remember those who are no longer with us.
Fellow board member Janice Cowden and I were both honored by LBBC as “Changemakers” – you can read more about that here. I was also on a panel entitled “The emotional impact of living long-term with MBC”, which was a bit out of the comfort zone for this sciency, evidence-based person! But I was able to talk about how getting involved with MBC advocacy in general and METAvivor in particular, has really helped me cope with this diagnosis and the loss of my career as an ob/gyn.
Janice and I weren’t the only METAvivor board member heading to Philly – we had 8 of us, from CA to NJ, and MA to FL, and spots in between, attending. Crystal Moore, our executive director, was also there. We usually see each other as tiny squares on Zoom, so it was wonderful to spend some time with AJ, Alpha, Barbara, Jamil, Janice, Lynda, and Sarah. A big shout out to Tim Bigelow who manned our booth the entire time, allowing us to catch sessions. Thank you to everyone who stopped by our booth, especially those who want to volunteer in various ways, from reviewing grants to being trained as peer-to-peer leaders so they can start support groups in their areas.
If you are interested in learning how you can become involved with METAvivor, check out our Take Action page.
-Kelly
PS: for those who’ve been following my clinical trial saga, the scans I talked about last month showed that the trial drugs are working! Every one of my many metastases are less active, after only 2 months!! Thank you for all your well wishes – I can feel them across the miles.