Donna Peach – Danced in to the Light

Last night , Donna Peach danced in to the light. It is her beautifully poetic expression for those that have died. Yesterday was Donna’s time. Every night I check my email and look for Donna Peach’s blog. She had stage IV metastatic breast cancer and I met her through her blog when I started blogging around ten months ago. Donna was a choreographer and a dancer and because of all my ballet and modern dance training, we became social media #fearless friends immediately. Her incredibly wonderful husband Marvin aka Don also would write on her blog to let us know how she was when she couldn’t.

Last night I was visiting my sister for a holiday and it’s the first night I did not check Donna’s blog. Of course Marvin was there to tell us what happened and to those who are interested in Donna’s blog please click here: at her site: http://donnapeach.com/. Unfortunately she was in the hospital and although she had been in and out of the hospital during these past 10 months, I had hoped she would get better and be able to go home with her incredible husband.

This is the part of breast cancer that I hate. When someone is diagnosed with Stage IV, their disease is not curable but there are various regimens of chemotherapy that can extend life. This is so unfair. The trick is trying to keep quality of life while extending it with regimens that have terrible side effects but are able to extend one’s lifetime.

My focus today is about the beautiful living Donna who participated in so many events with breast cancer social media including her web site and a site where others with cancer can express themselves through poetry and words. To see this great site go to: http://cancerpoet.com/. She always joined our meetings on Twitter with #BCSM (the breast cancer social media community) and I was always so happy to see that she was part of this incredible group.

I was supposed to meet her when the Los Angeles group of the #BCSM community met on a Saturday in West Hollywood, but unfortunately my dog Shelby had a terrible urinary tract infection and her urine was bloody. Leave it to Donna when I wrote her a long email explaining how sorry I was I missed the meeting, she just said not to worry I would see her the next meeting. Although deep down I knew time was getting limited, we all have to live in the moment and make the best of it.

I am frustrated that we have not found a way to help those with metastatic cancer. I have watched too many dance in to the light this way. But for today I just want to remember Donna and the beautiful soul that she was.

I know that sometimes this blog is hard for some. Who wants to hear about death and breast cancer? Yet this is a harsh reality of the disease. When I was first diagnosed I didn’t want to hear about anyone dying from the disease. All we want to hear is that we can be cured and we do what the doctors tell us and that’s the end of it.

Unfortunately when someone is diagnosed with metastatic cancer whether breast, esophageal, lung, pancreatic, colon, etc., many people don’t understand that no matter how much someone tries to grin and bear treatment there is no hope of a cure. There is only a chance of extending life through various chemo regimens depending upon one’s pathology.

I am not trying to be grim. I just want everyone to understand how special Donna was as well as so many I have watched with metastatic cancer that tried as hard as they could to stay with us as long as they could. I hope that through my advocacy this will change. I hope we can find a vaccine to end breast cancer while we learn how to reverse metastatic cancer. Only then will I believe that all of my time and energy was worth it – for truly this is a goal worth achieving.

Meanwhile, dear sweet Donna I hope your beautiful soul is at peace and you can feel all the love that so many of us are sending you.