“Oh, but not me”

I was 30 years old when I was told, “I’m sorry, but you have breast cancer.”

It is crazy how fast a few new facts being thrown at you can completely derail you from your path.

That day in September, 2008, the facts told to me were:

I had triple negative, grade 3, Stage 1 breast cancer.

I clung to what I thought I knew as facts…I was young, I caught it early…all should be good to go after it was all said and done.

I made it through chemo, surgery & radiation just as planned…just as the facts had be presented to me…keep your head down, push through the hard & all will be back to normal.

But there was a problem with my facts…I didn’t pay attention to ALL the facts about breast cancer because I thought, “NOT ME!”

I thought those statistics didn’t apply to me…HA! If we could actually just ignore what we don’t want to know and make the facts go away!?!? Sorry to burst your bubble, but it doesn’t work that way…believe me, I tried to hide from the facts for a long time.

But when the breast cancer metastasized to my lungs & bones, the fact that 30% of breast cancer comes back at Metastatic Breast Cancer hit me hard.

When I lost my first breast cancer friend, the fact about the average survival rate is a mere 30 MONTHS after diagnosis hit me harder.

When I ended up in the ER due to a seizure caused by a growth in my brain, is when I realized that fact about breast cancer moving to the brain was indeed true.

When I kept losing friends to Metastatic Breast Cancer, the fact that more than 115 people in the US alone die daily from MBC cut me deeper with each and every friend’s funeral I attended.

For some reason, I am beating the facts…I am beating the odds of the facts. I don’t know fore sure why me, but I believe it has something to do with the trial I was able to be in for my second line of treatment for MBC. It is this reason I am so passionate about funding for research…it is research that is going to change the playing field for MBC.

Because of this, I beg of you one thing…please know where your donation dollars go. I get it, it is exciting and fun to be a part of a big event, but PLEASE know what those big events fund…here is a hint…it isn’t much research at all…if any.

The facts are the facts; 1 in 8 women will get breast cancer. Of those 1 in 8, 30% are diagnosed with Metastatic Breast Cancer. 40,000 Americans die EVERY YEAR from MBC.

Those stats haven’t changed at all over the past 20 years.

We are all aware about breast cancer.

Can you please help me spread the facts…we need more research if we ever expect these statistics to change. Because the truth is…pretending it can’t happen to you or a loved one is not going to stop it from happening.