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.asco.org/sites/www.asco.org/files/bcs_13_research_release_-_letterhead.pdf
While it seems “impossible”
that women today – and the men who love them – would be unaware of breast
cancer, its challenges, and its dangers, a survey done of 10,000 New York women
showed that less than HALF of them have ever even discussed breast cancer with
their doctor.
The statistics for breast cancer in 2013:
- About 232,340 new cases of invasive breast cancer will be diagnosed in women.
- About 64,640 new cases of carcinoma in situ (CIS) will be diagnosed (CIS is non-invasive and is the earliest form of breast cancer).
- About 39,620 women will die from breast cancer
- Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in women, exceeded only by lung cancer.
- The chance that breast cancer will be responsible for a woman's death is about 1 in 36 (about 3%).
- There are more than 2.8 million breast cancer survivors in the United States. (This includes women still being treated and those who have completed treatment.)
The Susan B.
Kommen Foundation, The American Cancer Society – the biggest names I can think
of – are certainly not slacking in their mission.
The women my
wife has met who have dealt with breast cancer have ALL been willing to share
their lives with her. She has returned the favor to women who have come to her.
So why do so
relatively few women talk to their doctors?
My GUESS is
fear. Humans are peculiar beings. How many times have you named a fear only to
have someone “shush” you because naming the fear might cause it to happen? As
if saying, “They might die.” will be the cause of someone’s early demise!
My wife,
daughter and I are watching the entire series of MASH episodes. It’s taken us a
couple of years, but we’ve reached season 11, disk 2. Last night we watched “UN,
the Night, and the Music”. As is the formula for MASH, there’s a humorous
storyline (Houlihan falling for a Swedish UN doctor) and a serious storyline
(BJ is forced to remove a gangrenous leg of a young soldier). In the second
story, BJ mentally beats himself up after finding out the young soldier has a
wife and baby daughter at home in the States – just like him. There’s every
reason to believe that they will have to remove the man’s leg, but BJ
out-and-out refuses to even speak of the possibility – as if saying it will
make it happen.
But it’s the infection
that takes the leg, despite everyone NOT saying anything about it.
Breast cancer
will happen because it’s an insidious, sneaky, and invisible disease; not
because a woman asks her doctor about it.
Those of us who
love someone who has survived breast cancer; or someone who has loved some who
has not survived – need to continue to talk and encourage friends, relatives,
and anyone else we know well. Clearly the ad campaigns aren’t working.
Perhaps what’s
needed to change these numbers is the PERSONAL TOUCH?
