This past Friday, I sat down for an interview with The Patient Story (the final video will be available October 10th). One of the questions the interviewer asked me was simple — but it cracked me wide open: Where does your support come from?
I tried to answer, but the truth hit so hard I broke down. (Hopefully, some of my crying jag will be edited out.) Still, what I shared was raw and honest.
Outside of my immediate family—Jim, my sons, and my amazing daughters-in-law—my greatest support comes from my MBC family. My sisters and brothers who walk this same unrelenting path. The ones who check in on me, whom I check in on. The ones whose voices and messages carry me through the darkest nights.
It’s the love we pour into each other that sustains me. A love born not of choice, but of necessity. A love rooted in shared pain, in knowing that our time is both precious and uncertain. This community is where I find strength, where I find understanding without words, where I am reminded that even in the face of Stage IV cancer, we are never truly alone.
Pink October, But Not for Everyone
Each year, October rolls in with pink ribbons on mailboxes, pink cupcakes at fundraisers, pink t-shirts flooding social media. At first glance, it feels hopeful. A month of awareness, of solidarity, of a message of ‘we’re fighting together.’
But for those of us living with metastatic breast cancer, October pink can be a trigger. Every billboard, every ‘Save the Boobies’ campaign, every cheerful pink post reminds us of what pink doesn’t say: that our disease has marched past early detection, that our story is more complex than slogans.
We don’t just want awareness. We need change. We need research for metastatic disease, for lobular cancer, for the patients too often left out of the picture.
The Hard Truth
Breast cancer is often survivable in many cases, thanks to decades of research, early screening, and targeted therapies.
But for metastatic breast cancer (Stage IV), the picture is starkly different:
The five-year relative survival rate for metastasized breast cancer is only about 32%.
That statistic is not just a number. It’s my reality. It’s the reality of my friends. It’s the shadow we live with every day.
Why We Push, Every Day
Because “awareness” without action is hollow. Pink ribbons are not enough. We need more clinical trials, more funding for metastatic disease, more innovation for cancers that still don’t have good therapies. (In my own case, we need more clinical trials for invasive lobular breast cancer, for which there are less than a handful.)
Because stories matter. Every time people say, “early detection saves lives,” they forget that early detection doesn’t save every life.
Because hope must be real. We don’t need cheerleading. We need honesty, transparency, and investment in research that gives us more time and better quality of life.
Because life is more than “cure or die.” Many of us live years with Stage IV, balancing treatments, side effects, and meaning. We deserve dignity, support, and compassion until better treatments are found.
Because voices matter. We need you to ask the right questions, to stand with us, to be advocates for research, for trials, for real progress.
What You Can Do
Good work is being done. Real organizations are pushing for change and funding research. If you are donating, please consider giving to those that specifically support metastatic breast cancer research.
Your support makes a difference. Not in pink T-shirts or slogans — but in labs, in clinical trials, in real treatments that extend and improve lives.
Be a voice for change. Support us. Speak for us. Stand with us.
Because we don’t need more pink.
We need more progress.
These are some of the organizations our own money is going to this month: Please list yours in the comments.
LBCA (Lobular Breast Cancer Alliance)
METAvivor
Breast Cancer Research Foundation (BCRF)
Living Beyond Breast Cancer (LBBC)
Tagged: Cancer journey, cancer support, community, Breast Cancer Month, MBC, metastatic breast cancer, Pinktober
