Headlines

Apologies but I am going to have a little rant .........

Headlines such as this

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2255133/Organic-food-helped-beat-cancer-says-Marchioness-lived-alkaline-diet-chemotherapy.html

do nothing to help women who have had breast cancer. They just confuse families and friends who read it and think that you can ‘beat’ breast cancer by diet and in less than 3 years. There is already so much pressure on you when facing a breast cancer diagnosis without confusing the issue further. The treatment is hard – you are often facing a year of treatment, which may include chemotherapy, surgery, radiotherapy and maybe more surgery for reconstruction. I am not saying that you shouldn't try specific diets but don’t think that this will mean the disease will be beaten in 3 years.

The Cancer Research website doesn't talk about cures or even remission – it talks about survival. In 2010 (the year I was diagnosed) 49,563 women were also diagnosed.

The overall survival rates of breast cancer stand at

1 year = 95.8%

5 year = 85.1%

10 year = 77%

These are general survival rates for breast cancer and don’t take into account the different types of breast cancer and their treatments. Some types of breast cancer are more aggressive but some have the advantage of having ongoing treatment for example oestrogen receptive breast cancers. This makes the picture a difficult one to get your head around. But the main thing is to realise that we can no longer talk in terms of curing.

Cancer research states ‘A common misconception is to treat five-year survival rates as ‘cure’ rates. However, for breast cancer survival continues to fall beyond five years after diagnosis’ Unfortunately this means that people will die of breast cancer beyond the 5 years. Some having recurrences up to 20 years after diagnosis. I wish the media would take care when publishing these accounts of ‘cures’ and now use the better language of survival. For all of us who have ‘danced’ (my lovely friend Stephanie’s word) with breast cancer we have had to learn to live beyond the diagnosis and that means learning to live with the possibility that it will return. There are no guarantees even 20 years after diagnosis and we can never talk about being cured. Thankfully if you do reach 5 years from diagnosis then you do have a very good chance that it won’t recur but there are no promises. I am slowly learning that I don’t have to worry about every little ache and pain (a good job as I have plenty of them!) I am learning to thrive as well as survive remembering to make every day count but I remain alert to the possibility of cancer rearing its ugly head again. I wish that the media would look at reality rather than choosing the sensational headlines.