Cancer is the second-leading cause of death across the world. Each year, millions of lives are saved by implementing resource-appropriate strategies for prevention, early detection, and treatment.
This year's World Cancer Day theme is "Closing the Care Gap", drawing attention to disparities in cancer treatment around the world. Individuals with limited economic resources or members of marginalized groups in certain areas often face challenges in accessing appropriate cancer prevention, diagnosis, and treatment.
One of the reasons I started this site was to address the differences between breast cancer and metastatic breast cancer prevention. Women don't die from breast cancer, they die when the breast cancer spreads to other parts of the body. Bones, liver, lungs, and finally the brain. BC-met patients are a minority but have the severe side effect of death. At present there is no cure for stage 4 breast cancer. So every article, site, newsletter, and blog supportive of stage 4 breast cancer closes the gap.
I belong to a metastatic stage 4 website that has 9,000 members worldwide. Unfortunately, we get over 30 new participants every week. Even more worrying is that many of these women are under 40 years old. A number of these young members are diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer de novo. This means this is the first time they have been diagnosed with cancer. Hearing the words "You have breast cancer" is scary enough, but even scarier is "You have stage 4 breast cancer!"
In Western world statistics, the number of diagnoses of various types of cancer is increasing every year. Should we be surprised when we see fast food restaurants at every corner, stress-filled environments, and foods now labelled with toxins that have been allowed for decades?
I am grateful to those in the medical community who are researching medicines to support women and others like me with stage 4 cancer. However, drug treatment is not enough. We need to be aware of the foods we eat, the stress we face, and the toxins around us to help prevent cancer and live life over cancer with minimal side effects.
Equally important to prevention, we need to educate all health care providers, breast cancer survivors, breast cancer recurrence patients and everyone about the symptoms associated with stage 4 breast cancer. Many women could be diagnosed much earlier with a better prognosis with early intervention.
I am participating in World Cancer Day every day to prevent cancer diagnosis, educate breast cancer survivors and close the gap on awareness of metastatic breast cancer. Please share my website with family and friends to educate everyone on the importance of nutrition, stress management, and self-care in preventing cancers.
Prevention begins at home!
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