I confirmed that stat with my breast surgeon last Wednesday.
I discussed it with someone yesterday who had no idea.
The 90% survival that is proudly proclaimed is glib, and lulls everyone into a false sense of security. It's 90% at five years. I don't know about you but I f*****g well want more than five years. My youngest will only be 14 at the five year mark. 10 years is 83%, but that is that stat all causes of death, or actually BC? If it's the former I'd be interested to know the actual 10 year stat.
The whining you hear from some about how BC gets all the money and publicity, is understandable because the real stats are never publicised. Recently I had a conversation with a woman heavily involved with edometriosis. I explained what a BC diagnosis entails for the rest of your life, and that it is now the most commonly diagnosed cancer in Australia and she looked genuinely shocked. She said she thought it was just about cured and that she'd thought it got too much attention and funding.
If I was designing awareness raising campaigns I include some shock factor ones, including the fact that 30% of early diagnoses will get metastatic disease. For which there is no cure. I'd also include one that explains that more young women are being diagnosed with it, that it's more aggressive in the young, and that if your GP tells you you're too young to have BC (and we've heard that more than once here), to get a new GP. I'd include vision of the ease and speed of mammograms, and that they're at 40 and if you've got no family history, to start at 45.
I get the need to give hope, but as someone whose life has been hugely affected by this disease, I'd prefer reality.
Let's stop pussy footing around this disease. It's time get a new logo and tone down the pinkwash.
One in eight women diagnosed.
Men get it too.
53 per day diagnosed.
Eight a day dying.
