BREAST CANCER RESEARCH RIGHT NOW! 4: Friends, family and support

From the first moment my wife discovered she had breast cancer, there was a deafening silence from the men I know. Even ones whose wives, mothers or girlfriends had breast cancer seemed to have received a gag order from some Central Cancer Command and did little more than mumble about the experience. Not one to shut up for any known reason, I started this blog…

Every month, I’ll be highlighting breast cancer research that is going on RIGHT NOW! Harvested from different websites, journals and podcasts, I’ll translate them into understandable English and share them with you. Today: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121109091158.htm

While it doesn’t seem shocking on the surface and our response might be, “Well, DUH!” this research does bear looking at.

Mostly because it’s the first time anyone has tried to find evidence that supports something that we often take for granted.

My wife has had a very, very strong network of friends and family since her diagnosis in March of 2011. (Not just saying that because I worked really hard at being there for her! ;-)) But it seemed like from that day on, people seemed to pop out of the woodwork. Her Caring Bridge posts drew comments from friends and family, but surprisingly from strangers. Others sat with us during surgeries and treatments – even friends of our daughter lent their support during the initial crisis.

Support has continued. Going to a new clinic, and even to the old, people that worked with her were caring and thoughtful and feeling like a cypher was an unusual occurrence.

But what the article talked about was finally QUANTIFYING what has remained a vague, anecdotal feeling. By quantifying, I mean putting numbers to the feelings. The results are startling. If a woman has a small, unsupportive community of people around her when she discovers she has breast cancer, she is 30-60 percent more likely to DIE result of the diagnosis!

What should that say to us? It would be easy to brush it off and suggest that women with small communities of supporters either want it that way or a disagreeable people who (somehow) “deserve” what they get. It would be easiest to simply ignore something that many people know in their hearts and now has the numbers to support it.

It could ALSO be a loud call to those of us who are either survivors (like my wife) or part of support communities (like me) to reach out to others who don’t have communities.

The next time you meet someone with a new diagnosis – or someone who is anywhere along the way in her breast cancer struggle – offer to become a member of her community of support.

The numbers are in – if you support someone, her chances of survival GO UP!

Image: http://www.makebeautysimple.com/files/blog/pic-sp-raceInformation-1.png