I have started a petition calling for a fair share of the research funding to go to research into metastatic breast cancer. I intend to send it to Cancer Research UK who once told me that they devoted about 1% of their £400m annual research budget to research into any kind of metastatic cancer and other organisations in the UK who fund breast cancer research. As 30% of those who are diagnosed with breast cancer will progress to having metastatic, Stage IV breast cancer the research programme should have 30% devoted to metastatic disease.
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/fair-research-funding-for-metastatic-breast-cancer/
Please sign it and pass it on; or pass it on even if you do not feel that you can sign it.
Finding treatments to deal with metastatic breast cancer will help not only those of us with this stage of the disease, but also those with early stage breast cancer because it will help to relieve the stress and fear of a progression of this disease. It may also allow them to embrace and accept those of us with MBC which many of us feel is not the case at the moment. We are their worst nightmare.
I can understand the reluctance of the Pink Movement to acknowledge us. We are not a part of the success story which is the image of breast cancer; not a part of the survivorship which is so celebrated as a corner stone of breast cancer. There are so many people who think that it is a curable disease but many early stage patients know that there is a Stage IV which is incurable and is something to be dreaded and feared which in turn leads to our sense of isolation. We are not failures. We are simply living with breast cancer every day for the rest of our lives. If you sign the petition it may help us to live longer.
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