San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium – A Patient Advocate’s POV

It was extremely exciting being at the 36th annual Breast Cancer Symposium in San Antonio (SABCS). I was hoping to go on Twitter during the Symposium but was having a lot of trouble during the conference with the wifi signal. I decided to concentrate on the presentations and when I could find information being reported on them I knew that those that could not hear the presentations live wanted to know what was happening there. All of the speakers were incredible. There are tons of studies that were reported in the news that I tried to “scoop” as many as I could at: Breast Cancer News.

As much as I try to deny that there is any left over chemobrain from the dose-dense ACT (Adriamycin, Cytoxan, Taxol) chemotherapy that I did for treatment of my primary breast cancer in 2005, I have to admit that as much as I want to have my brain functioning at full capacity, there are residual effects that happen and I can’t hold so much information all at once. At times things slip away. I have particularly noticed that I make errors with numbers. With that in mind I accept my limitations. I tried to be as present as I could during the conference, and I hope to be careful when putting dates with numbers so as not to make careless errors. I plan to attend again next year and I am determined to keep myself on the Twitter feed while I take in the presentations and have an assistant help in finding the articles that represent the presentations so that those who can’t attend can get the information.

If I wait too long to blog about SABCS I know that I will write something so long that it will be too much to read. I am going to post more than one post so that I can keep this at a reasonable length. I am also going to suggest some great links to other blogs and if you wish to follow them just click on the ones that are highlighted in a different color and it will take you to these other great places for information. To read some terrific explanations of some of the studies take a look at Dr. Susan Love’s Act with Love Blog, San Antonio Breast Symposium Day 1 – Day 3, with a great round up including the Survivorship Presentation on Day 3, #BCSM blog presentations by Dr. Julie Gralow, SABCS Highlights, and SABCS Highlights by Dr. Robert S. Miller.

I did miss seeing Dr. Susan Love at the conference live but her round up of SABCS is amazing! I saw Dr. Gralow presenting and had the good fortune to meet Dr. Miller in person. I loved seeing the people I know from social media live at the conference. It turns out, thanks to connections on Twitter, that I was fortunate to share my room with a remarkable breast surgeon, Dr. Dana Abraham. It’s so exciting to meet doctors that care about patients and want to understand this disease from their perspective. It is wonderful to see friends who are fellow patient advocates. I have some photos here. If I mention all the names this will really get very long!

Today, I want to concentrate on my takeaway from all the presentations from the perspective of a patient advocate. One of my favorite parts of the conference was the Case Discussions where the panelists included doctors who are experts in medical oncology, radiotherapy, and they also included a patient advocate. Here, doctors come up to the mike and present real case studies and the panelists give opinions and their ideas about what should be done about the cases presented.

It was exciting to see that the doctors included a patient advocate on the panel as it’s becoming clear to me that doctors are learning a lot from patient advocates. I am so impressed with how hard these medical professionals work to understand and help their patients. I am also very impressed with how many doctors are reaching out to patients with social media and including patient advocates by starting to bring them in to the conversation. Listening to the panel of experts recommending treatments, especially keeping track of all the trials that were being presented at the conference, was extremely impressive. Both the doctors and the patient advocates tried to come up with ways to help and I was really impressed with the fact that the atmosphere was focused on presenting all of the evidenced based information to patients about their options and making sure that patients are part of the process in deciding what they do for their treatment.

I think it’s so important that patients make sure they are working with a doctor who keeps up with the latest information available for their specific case and allows the patient to make informed decisions by presenting the patient all the options. When a patient is diagnosed at any stage of breast cancer, there is so much information and it’s hard to sort it all out. Yet if a doctor just dictates the treatment without explaining the pros and cons of all the options, the patient is not being allowed patients to understand fully what choices are available. As patient advocates we want to know as much as we can about this disease because one size does not fit all. Every case is unique.

I was struck by a doctor who had a patient that was having trouble taking her tamoxifen. Her doctor really cared about trying to have her patient be compliant and the patient was having terrible trouble with the side effects. With this case the doctors had some ideas for medications and the patient advocate (Beverly Canin) also recommended alternative therapies. What struck me most was how compassionate the doctors were as they presented their cases as well as the suggestions coming from the panelist, especially when using all the trials presented at SABCS.

For anyone who has breast cancer, has been in treatment, or is in treatment for breast cancer and knows first hand about these awful side effects from so many treatments they can consider alternative complimentary treatments. A great resource for complimentary and alternative therapies is The Annie Appleseed Project,

In contrast to the incredible compassion that I saw from so many doctors, I saw a different approach from one of the case study presentations that had to do with AI’s and compliance of patients. The presenter seemed to want to be dismissive of the patient’s complaints about side effects with these medications. Without calling out the specific study or doctor presenting it, I was disturbed by his lack of compassion and how much he gave the impression that the side effects and his data seemed to imply the effects were probably more in the patients mind than as a result of the medication. Here was an example where a doctor needs to be more like the incredible doctors I was surrounded by as far as being compassionate and realizing these side effects are real.

I also love attending the Alamo Breast Cancer Foundation (ABCF) Hot Topics Mentor Sessions. They always have the best speakers reviewing many of the case studies presented during the day as well as other topics of interest to them. One of the panel discussions was taped and to see this great presentation go to: Breast Cancer Answers’ Video of SABCS Hot Topic Mentor Sessions.

One of the patient advocate questions dealt with asking what we can do as advocates. Clifford A. Hudis, MD the President of ASCO, Chief of Breast Cancer Medicine Service and an attending physician at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, had recommended that we keep writing to congress.

I am a member of ASCO in Action and I recommend that everyone interested in being an advocate join this group. They give action alerts and pre-written letters to congress about issues important to all of us, especially in reference to oncology. I always take the letters and when they say “As an oncologist in your district” I change the words to “As a patient of an oncologist in your district” and send the letters off to my representatives. Another important organization to pay attention to is Breast Cancer Action. They also have important actions and letters that impact the breast cancer community. At Advocates 4 Breast Cancer we are working toward trying to get a program to make it easy for other advocates to write these letters, but for now please stay posted on this site for alerts to letters that we recommend you write. I was in agreement with Clifford Hudis, MD’s observation that he hears back from every person we write to in Congress. I send them via email and I am glad that they are paying attention.

I was also moved by a talk that Cate Edwards (daughter of the late Elizabeth Edwards) gave during a dinner with Novartis Oncology about her involvement with metastatic disease, recognizing the importance of the patient as well as the caretakers. Everyone knows how passionate I am about making sure no one with Metastatic Breast Cancer is forgotten.

As breast cancer patient advocates Stages 0-4, we must always put those with Metastatic Breast Cancer (MBC) first and foremost in our minds and they should never be left to feel abandoned or alone. I wish there had been more at the conference focused on metastatic disease. There were some studies, but next year I’d like to see a stronger focus on research for MBC.

Sequestration has taken its toll of health science at the NIH and NCI. During the year things had to be scaled back 10-15% in labs. This hurts research because science relies on heavy funding. Once again this is where we as patient advocates in the US must keep paying attention to what is happening with the budget in congress and keep writing to congress to have our voices heard.

I am going to end this post as I will be posting some more thoughts in another installment. What a thrill it was to attend this conference live. I am also so grateful for the one-on-one meetings that I got to have with my fellow advocates and doctors.

Dr. Susan Love’s Research Foundation Teams Up

I received this in an email yesterday from Dr. Susan Love’s Research Foundation. Leave it to Dr. Susan Love to bring together Susan G. Komen, the Young Survival Coalition, and the Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation to collaborate on the collateral damage and side effects of Breast Cancer as part of the Health of Women (HOW) study. This is so exciting to have breast cancer organizations working together. Dr. Susan Love not only wrote about this concept but she is taking action.

There’s still time to participate with questions in this study so please read the release that Dr. Susan Love sent and get all of this great information including how you can join the conversation with Dr. Susan Love on Facebook, Wed October 2 at 9am Pacific Time and/or Twitter at 1:00 Pacific time.

Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation Teams with Susan G. Komen and Young Survival Coalition to Document the Collateral Damage of Breast Cancer

We’re pleased to announce the groundbreaking collaboration of three breast cancer powerhouses to document the short- and long-term physical and emotional side effects of breast cancer treatments as part of the Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation’s Health of Women [HOW] Study.

Those of you who have been following Dr. Love’s recent blog posts are aware of  the outpouring of interest in documenting the collateral damage of today’s breast cancer treatments and many of you have already participated by providing key questions about your own experiences.

More data needs to be collected to provide the scientific community with the most robust cohort from which to derive and analyze the true cost of the cure. In the spirit of collaboration, the Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation reached out to Susan G. Komen and Young Survival Coalition as well as other advocacy groups to ask for their help in spreading the word.

Susan G. Komen and Young Survival Coalition have agreed and are inviting their constituents to share their experiences with collateral damage from treatment and to participate in the HOW Study as a means of identifying the causes of, and prevention strategies for breast cancer. This groundbreaking collaboration also demonstrates that different breast cancer organizations can work together on important issues.  We welcome all breast cancer and cancer groups to join us.

Questions about collateral damage from breast cancer can be submitted through October to http://www.questionthecure.org. Anyone interested in being part of this initiative can register for the Health of Women [HOW] Study and complete the basic questionnaires on personal health and/or breast cancer diagnoses. When the collateral damage module is complete and online, participants will be notified by email.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To give you an opportunity to learn more about this groundbreaking collaboration, Dr. Susan Love will host a Facebook chat (Wednesday, October 2 at 9:00 a.m. PDT) and a Twitter chat (Wednesday, October 2 at 1:00 p.m. PDT).

Notes from Dr. Susan Love Speaking at the Summit

I really enjoyed hearing Dr. Susan Love speak at the Inaugural Advocate Leadership Summit. For starters it was such a thrill and so exciting to see her after knowing that she went through intense treatment including chemotherapy and surgery for leukemia. I always feel so uplifted when she talks about breast cancer and opens our minds to see things with a fresh perspective. She raised some great points. I took my notes and I hope I am reflecting what she spoke about in the best way possible to help others read what she had to say.

She spoke about breast cancer today, and the damage of treatment and over diagnosis. She said with our goal of finding every tumor even those that are just DCIS and have not progressed to cancer, is like the TSA screening. We are in a climate of over treatment where we tend to slash, burn and poison. Then when we have recurrences we have done so much treatment that it could reduce the treatment’s effectiveness. She acknowledges that doctors roles are to find things. Yet 29% of cancers would not kill. Only 20 -30% will become invasive. We over treat and over test. We are in a climate of more is better. We use MRI, PET CT, and Markers. All of this equals finding reasons for treatment. So we do surgery, radiation, chemo, and hormone targeted therapy.

Yet we never think of not doing a treatment or subtracting from a treatment plan. We just throw everything we can at whatever we find. She talked about how the oncotype dx and/or the mammaprint test at least looks at whether all of this treatment is necessary. She says none of this is malicious on the doctor’s part. It’s just that no one is looking at the big picture.

For example, when patients are diagnosed, they are scared. So they listen to their doctors and do what they are told. But with all of this treatment thrown on all the over diagnostic testing and never subtracting from the treatment especially at an early stage comes in a climate of intense fear. No one is ever told about the terrible toll side effects will play on the patient from all of this slash and burn treatment. There is a huge amount of collateral damage.

Having come from doing chemotherapy herself she understands how much this type of treatment takes its toll. Side effects are always down played. No one talks about the effect of AI’s or lymphedema. At least the oncotype dx test and mammaprint test looks at whether treatments might work. It would help us to know before treatment, what all these side effects were, whether all of this treatment is necessary and if every case warranted and needed all of this treatment. Also is all this treatment going to be effective or will it just overtax the body and mind? Is anyone looking at the big picture? Can we try to predict if someone will get lymphedema before we rush to do surgery?

With radiation there is skin damage. Treatment causes muscles to atrophy. Do we make all women wear a protective sleeve on an airplane? Do we let patients know that when we take breast tissue away that there will be no sensation left in the breast? Do we tell ahead of all the pain from surgery?

There is pain from surgery. There is collateral damage from all treatment. There’s numbness, muscle atrophy, skin changes, and heart disease. With all of this systematic therapy all things have side effects. The fatigue and chemobrain lasts for years. There’s heart disease from chemotherapy. Anthracyclines can cause leukemia. These things have lasting side effects. Fertility problems, joint problems, fractures and second cancers…all of these things are real. Treatment is not a free lunch.

When someone is triple negative at the beginning they can do well, but statistics show that triple negative breast cancer tends to recur early on. Other cancers tend to recur later while the patients are far away from all of this intense treatment. This is where prevention makes the most sense. If we can prevent the problem in the first place and knew what the real bugs in the breast were at the beginning wouldn’t we be better off? If we understood the environment before the problems took place and we had a vaccine to prevent these problems and we really understood how to keep a normal breast before we rush to all this treatment, wouldn’t that be a better approach? If we really looked at immunology, anatomy, physiology and found new clues and new ways to study DCIS before we rushed to throw everything in the kitchen sink on it, would we need surgery for DCIS? Could 3D ultrasound help with DCIS?

Ductal carcinoma in sity (DCIS) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Instead of continuing to follow the things as they are, we at least owe it to ourselves to be asking these questions. Instead of rushing to treatment with DCIS would it be better to see carefully what was happening before we put a patient through these treatments that have collateral damage and side effects? Tamoxifen has a lot of side effects as well as AI’s.

At least by asking these questions and trying to prevent the problem with a vaccine we would be looking at everything we are doing and starting to come up with new ways of approaching the problem instead of just following the status quo of what we are doing. We need to do this so that we can avoid all of this collateral damage and also have these treatments available in case things progressed before someone has been so over treated that when they present with advanced disease all of this has been used and is no longer effective.

I also asked her whether by working on a vaccine to prevent breast cancer could we also apply using this for metastatic disease by injecting someone with a vaccine and being able to turn their disease around?  She very carefully admitted that this was not her expertise and that she had just finished treatments, but she did feel that there was nothing to prevent us from trying to make a vaccine that also tackled metastatic breast cancer. Whether or not this is feasible I do not know, but what I did appreciate was hearing her perspective after going through as much as she has been through, and I am so glad that she is part of the team of trying to find answers and look at new ways that we approach this terrible disease.

It’s so great to have her back with all of us, after her treatments. She is truly someone who I admire and knows so much about breast cancer and it’s amazing to see her post treatment with so much enthusiasm for getting back to work on all of these important issues revolved around breast cancer.

Dr. Susan Love, MD, MBA, FACS is a Clinical Professor of Surgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, and the President of the Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation. She leads the Love/Avon Army of Women, an initiative partnering of women (and men) who are willing to participate in breast cancer research with scientists who are conducting research on the prevention of breast cancer. She is the author of “Dr. Susan Love’s Breast Book,” which is in it’s 5th edition. Dr. Love is a founding member of NBCC and her foundation is represented on the Board of Directors of NBCC. She received her medical degree from SUNY Downstate Medical Center in New York and did her surgical training at Boston’s Beth Israel Hospital.

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After realizing that some people are not aware of the Oncotype DX test or the Mammaprint test, I went to their websites and here is the current information about the tests. Of course, always discuss this with your oncologist as this is only here to help those that don’t know the latest information about these tests that is available online.

According to the Oncotype DX website:

The Oncotype DX^® test is a diagnostic test that helps identify which women with early-stage, estrogen-receptor positive and lymph-node-negative breast cancer are more likely to benefit from adding chemotherapy to their hormonal treatment. This test also helps assess the likelihood that an individual woman’s breast cancer will return. The Oncotype DX test provides important information that you and your doctor may use when making decisions about treatment. Post-menopausal women recently diagnosed with node-positive, hormone-receptor-positive breast cancer may also be appropriate candidates for the Oncotype DX test.

According to the MammaPrint website:

To be eligible for the MammaPrint gene expression profile, a breast cancer patient should fulfill the following criteria:

• Breast Cancer Stage 1 or Stage 2
• Invasive carcinoma (infiltrating carcinoma)
• Tumor size <5.0 cm
• Lymph node negative
• Estrogen receptor positive (ER+) or Estrogen receptor negative (ER-)
• Women of all ages

Hope from the NBCC Deadline 2020 Advocate Summit and Lobby Day

As I returned home from the NBCC (National Breast Cancer Coalition) Advocates Summit and Lobby Day to end Breast Cancer Deadline 2020, I was really happy I went. I have to admit I had so many reservations going. I labored over my decision. I thought I was going to fly home with “Frustration – Part Two.” There’s been a lot of people angry with the NBCC because of issues about putting MBC (Metastatic Breast Cancer) under the bus literally. My fearless friends have real reasons to be upset. Here is an organization that has educated so many women who have had to hear the words “You or a loved one has breast cancer.” They have an incredible program called Project LEAD which is an intensive six-day course teaching the science and very important advocate issues about breast cancer.

I have learned a great deal from Project LEAD, LEADcasts, summits and attending Breast Cancer Symposiums that stemmed from first learning with the NBCC about breast cancer. Great scientists, researchers, doctors and leaders of breast cancer advocacy taught me the grim statistics that now in the US alone 108 women die a day of MBC (metastatic breast cancer). That’s one woman every 14 minutes. There are also men but the stats are less. In 1975 there were 112 deaths a day in the US from MBC. It’s 2013. Four less deaths a day is not much progress when it comes to death rates.

So here was my dilemma. The NBCC who taught us about the death rates has a campaign to end breast cancer in 2020. So what happens to the metastatic patient while they figure out how to get a vaccine to end breast cancer?

There has been a lot of differences of opinion within the breast cancer community and understandably so. If you are only preventing breast cancer and preventing metastatic breast cancer what of the person diagnosed as metastatic. The very people they say they are helping…Are they really helping them?

I went to symposium expecting to come home finished with them. But my mind was open. I saw that Musa Meyer was going to the conference. She is the head of the advanced metastatic breast cancer organization. She is committed to the advanced breast cancer community and through her website http://www.advancedbc.org and the BCMets,org online community Musa focuses daily with BCMETS.org by helping women with MBC and their families understand treatment options and emerging research.

There was also an impressive line up of speakers. Dr Dennis Slamon gave a great talk. He is best known for being instrumental in the identification of the Her2/neu oncogene and the resulting treatment of tratusunab (Herceptin) which has been hailed as the first triumph in an emerging wave of targeted therapies. Some other speakers included Dr. Susan Love, Dr. Michael Baum, Dr. Peter Lee, and Dr. Barrett Kramer to name a few. In my next post I will be writing more about what some of these speakers spoke about.

Shirley Mertz of the MBCN (Metastatic Breast Cancer Network) was also at the conference. If leading metastatic breast cancer patients and their organizations were getting behind the deadline, and I have always supported the NBCC, I owed it to myself and Advocates for Breast Cancer to attend and make up my mind.

The most moving plenary session I attended was called “Effectively Targeting Metastasis in Breast Cancer.” First Shirley Mertz spoke to us, endorsing Deadline 2020. She talked about the differences between early stage breast cancer patients and MBC. 80-90% of all breast cancer patients start at early stage breast cancer. Early stage can be anything from DCIS (ductal carcinoma in situ) which is pre-cancer and a little more complicated but for this post I will leave the explanation as that. Early stage cancer can also be cancer that is contained in the breast where someone might only need a lumpectomy or a mastectomy and/or radiation depending on the size of the tumor and whether there is lymph node involvement. Otherwise another early stage breast cancer is when the cancer travels to the lymph nodes and the patient could have a lumpectomy, chemotherapy and/or radiation and/or a mastectomy but the most important thing to understand about early stage is that one is told they have a 70% chance of survival and many do whatever treatments that are recommended or they feel will work and after treatment some prescribed medications depending on their pathology. Some also choose alternative therapies. For most early stage patients, when they “finish primary treatment”  and are told they have NED (No Evidence of Disease) they can have the chance of knowing they may be “cured.” Then they are told they have a 30% chance of a metastatic recurrence that can happen at any time, but at least there is an end point to the treatment. Of course there are many side effects and I am oversimplifying “treatment” as an end point but I am trying to show the differences between early stage breast cancer and MBC. MBC is chronic and so far there is no known “cure”.

Shirley explained about how she goes for chemotherapy infusions and where she goes there are early stage patients getting chemo and when they get their last treatment they have a special bell and everyone celebrates their end point of chemotherapy treatment. When one has metastatic breast cancer there is no end point to treatment so Shirley remembers the joy of knowing there was an end point but unfortunately for the MBC patient this will never happen. There are also people with inflammatory breast cancer which is an unbelievably aggressive form of breast cancer that many do not survive. Again for simplicity I am just trying to show the many differences that exist in breast cancer diagnosis and treatment options.

After Shirley Mertz, Suzanne Faqua PHD continued talking with us about the science involved and critical issues in metastasis research. Suzanne is a professor in the Lester and Sue Smith Breast Center at the Baylor College of Medicine. She specializes in metastatic research especially working with hormone positive MBC.

She explained the way current science recognizes the need to study not only the primary tumor but looking at the similarities and differences of the heterogeneity of a metastatic tumor. As we look at the critical issues in metastatic research our approach is important. For optimal targeted therapy we must identify key pathways (key drivers), block the pathway completely, anticipate escape mechanisms and block them too, and explore combination therapy. She talked about studies related to PIK3CA status in blood, liquid biopsies, circulating tumor cells and how we must do targeted therapies in human trials. Her talk had some of the complicated science involved with tumor dormancy, including the fact that there aren’t current dormancy-cell killing drugs in clinical trials. This needs to change.

Some of her personal perspective of the critical issues in metastasis research includes the need for us to get the pace moving. We have to change the dogma that “The horse is out of the barn” so we can prevent metastasis. There is a lack of clear “drivers” to target. Suzanne also spoke about how important it is to now understand the metastatic tumors and be able to collect tissue samples from biopsies of metastatic tumors and analyze them. Apparently there is a problem within the research community where the researchers want to study the tissue samples from metastatic tumors and how there is difficulty getting theses samples. The woman sitting next to me said she gave her samples and is disappointed that researchers aren’t getting their samples. Another problem is funding. Negative funding will slow and halt progress. That’s why Lobby Day was so important and we also need to keep the program at the DOD (Department of Defense) going so we continue vital research especially when it comes to metastasis.

The NBCC is going to have a special meeting in June with scientists, doctors and metastatic breast cancer patient advocates to study metastatic breast cancer and tumor dormancy. The science is complicated. But someone explained to me that the basics are if the scientists can take the metastatic patients and get their metastatic tumors to go back to sleep and not spread any further, they can go on to live with the disease for many years. The best way I can understand and explain it is that with AIDS they have not found “the cure” but they have found medications that allow people to continue to live with AIDS and they can live for a very long time.

This information is very important to me. I know I have written about the death of my best friend from MBC who survived and thrived through primary chemo with me and lived as long as she could with triple negative MBC. I have so many friends with metastatic breast cancer now, and met some really special new friends at the conference and I have written about how upset I am that they need to have more money dedicated to metastatic research.

One of the difficult things in the breast cancer world is that different organizations have different agendas. Sometimes there are clashes. I am someone who wants everyone to work together. I believe in teamwork. It is the spirit of teamwork that helps me understand the mistakes of the past with breast cancer and pink culture yet try to move forward with my advocacy.

This is what I gained from the people who are committed to deadline 2020. Advocates are working in every way they can to see an end to this disease so that we don’t have to have our sons and daughters hear the words “you or a loved one has breast cancer.”

I understand that some people are moving on from the NBCC and others like me and many of my new friends that I met in DC are supporting the NBCC. For those that don’t want to support them, please know I understand your point of view and I am not going to tell anyone they have to feel the same as I do. This was my experience at the conference. This is what I went away feeling that I am doing what I believe is right for myself and my organization. I am passionate about my advocacy and making a difference with breast cancer and nothing will change that. I hope that one day this horrible disease can be contained and women can go on to live happy productive lives with the most quality of life that they can as result of the scars that come with this disease.

I respect that others see some of what the NBCC is doing with a different lens. When it comes to our passion and intentions, we are all on the same side. What is most important is that we respect each other and work towards ending this disease in every form while we continue to place much emphasis on metastatic research.

Setting a deadline is always a good idea to set goals and try to reach them. Had we never set a goal to get a man on the moon we never would have footage of Neil Armstrong stepping on the moon and saying the famous words, “One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”

Lobby Day was also important to get bipartisan agreement and congressional representatives to sign “The Accelerating the End of Breast Cancer Act”, H.R. 1830, and that we continued to get the funding support for the Peer-Reviewed Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program (BCRP).

I also met some amazing new fearless friends many who currently are metastatic and have such interesting stories. As we all know it is our unique stories that move us to understand more about this horrible disease and fuels us to do whatever we can to help one another in this land of cancer.

I am so glad I went to DC and came back with all of this hope as well as meeting great new friends. The Summit was so much at once and my only criticism is that they packed in so much that we didn’t even have a break during meals because there were speeches and meetings during the whole time. Even though it was exhausting, the Summit was really worth it. Hope is a great thing to have in our lives.

While Flying – Frustration surrounds Me

For starters I was on a flight for a happy family event. The day started great. I got a lot of work done on our official Advocates for Breast Cancer website. I got to the airport at the right time even though LAX was so crowded because there’s a problem with the TSA and there’s long lines and less TSA agents to help move the lines faster.

I was a little mad at myself because I was lazy and went through the machine that I have been told by a radiation oncologist (whom I have great respect for) I should probably skip and not expose myself to the radiation. It just seemed faster. I started in an airport lounge with my computer figuring I’d work a little more on my Breast Cancer News at: http://www.scoop.it/t/breast-cancer-news and my Breast Cancer Advocacy stories at: http://www.scoop.it/t/breast-cancer-advocay. Sounds simple enough.

I searched the internet for abstracts and news stories about breast cancer and found what I hoped would make a difference with advocacy for breast cancer (and other cancers). I even discovered I spelled advocacy wrong today. Certainly I’m human and can make a spelling mistake. I sent out all of my good wishes to my fearless friends and organizations on Twitter trying to make pretty graphics while I sent energy to all of these incredible people who I have met either personally or through social media. So it seemed like it was time to get ready to enjoy a special family weekend.

I plugged my computer in and I saw a note from AnneMarie to look at Jody’s blog. I already suspected it’s bad news. Jody Schroger is one of our great moderators every Monday night at 6pm PST for #BCSM (breast cancer social media). It’s very bad. After years of NED (no evidence of disease), Jody has joined the 30% of breast cancer thrivers that has metastatic breast cancer (MBC).

And Jody. Why? She is a fantastic person who runs our #bcsm (breast cancer social media community) meetings with Alicia Stales and Dr. Deanna Attai. Why her? Welcome to the world of breast cancer. It’s all bad luck. Whoever gets Stage IV it has nothing to do with them not taking care of themselves or what stage they started with the disease.

I keep thinking everyone knows that I have talked about the statistic that about 30% of early stage breast cancer patients will go on to become metastatic. That’s Stage IV. Early stage breast cancer is what I had when I did chemo, radiation, and had a recurrence a year and half later. Stage IV means that the breast cancer has managed to travel from the breast to other body parts. With breast cancer it’s usually the bones, brains, liver, or lungs. Stage IV is a chronic disease. It is not curable, but can be contained. It depends on many factors how long it can be “contained”. Usually certain pathologies help because there are more targeted therapies that can work on keeping the cancer at bay. For those that don’t understand Stage IV breast cancer is breast cancer that has traveled to another body part. Let’s say it goes to the bones. It’s not bone cancer but still breast cancer that has metastasized to another body part.

I am angry. This disease is like dominoes. This disease is so cruel. I watch as friends that I care about get the bad news. The reason I did the chemo-hoping no bad cells could hide from all the nasty toxic chemo that I did because my breast cancer made it in to my lymph nodes giving it a chance to enter my blood stream. We never know if some cells hid out and they are just waiting to say- GOT YA.

OK here’s the Stage IV lesson. They have drug regimens that patients go through that can keep the cancer at bay for some time and then the cancer finds a way to outsmart the therapy. So the MBC patient moves on to the next drug. The trick is to try to find regimens with quality of life for as long as you can until the cancer outsmarts the drug. Then it’s time for nerve-racking scans to see if the drug is working. If the medications are working it’s great. The patient stays the course. Eventually though comes the scan that shows the cancer is growing and trying to get to more body parts. Many MBC patients can live a very long time especially with certain pathologies that lend itself to drug therapies that can help contain the disease. Today’s MBC patient can even have a chance of seeing NED (no evidence of disease). But the cancer still comes back and outsmarts the treatment. I respect everyone who has metastatic disease because they have to live knowing they are on a slope that eventually their disease will no longer respond to the drugs we have available today.

At the same time I want to be clear that today’s MBC patient is quite alive and can have a long quality of life.

At the beginning when diagnosed there is so much shock to the body and mind. I have watched my best friend Li Bailey go through the process quicker than others because unfortunately (bad luck) she had a pathology that today we have less medications to fight it with.

This is just not fair.

So why am I so frustrated? I am running a non-profit that aligns itself with breast cancer organizations that are working to help breast cancer patients. After learning that Komen’s  junk campaigns were based on lies like telling women if they got mammograms they had a 98% chance of beating breast cancer. This is so not true. Komen also raised the most money of any breast cancer organizations. There was a great article in the New York Times, written by journalist Peggey Orestein that I scooped today called “Our Feel-Good War on Breast Cancer,” I published the article in my last blog. Meanwhile Katherine O’Brien of the Secretary of the MBCN (Metastatic Breast Cancer Network) wrote a great summary, overview and response to the article called Our Feel-Good War on Breast Cancer: MBCN Responds. In her response to Komen’s use of funds towards metastatic research, she writes, “ According to a Fortune magazine analysis, only an estimated .5 percent of all National Cancer Institute grants since 1972 focus on metastasis; out of more than $2.2 billion dollars raised over the last six years, Komen has dedicated $79 million to such research — a lot of money, to be sure, but a mere 3.6 percent of its total budget during that period.”

There has been a a lot of backlash against Komen and as some of you understand the overselling of pink culture I don’t have to explain the issue. I hope that you had time to read these articles. They are so well written.

I think there is another problem with Komen. I think the biggest backlash against them is that they became arrogant. People called them out for having pink parades that did not include the metastatic community because they didn’t want sick people marching in their parades, since it didn’t give you that warm fuzzy feeling of survivors raising their pink pom poms because they survived the disease. Komen thumbed their nose at the metastatic community.

I have to fight for the mets community. I can’t help it. People are dying around me. I don’t like that. People are doing all sorts of difficult medical regimens to stay alive. I have to open my big mouth and do all I can.

I promise you I won’t stop until MBC is a disease that can be reversed or people can live with Quality of life. I will continue to see that we don’t continue having corporations making known toxins that cause breast cancer.

One positive thing that happened is when the #BCSM Community group met we all rallied around Jody. Ironically I was flying back from the weekend on Monday night and joined the meeting on a flight that had wifi. At first I was confused if the timing would work. Then I realized as long as I started the meeting at the right time, the hour would be the same no matter if I flew in to a different time zone. So many of us were frustrated, angry and wanted Jody to know we have her back. This community means so much to me and I am grateful that at least we can come together during the good and bad times.

I have a lot more to say about all of this. For now I am going to publish this first part and continue talking about some other things that have added to my frustration. Stay tuned.

Dr. Susan Love is Back in Action

Below is the statement from Dr. Susan Love about her returning after going through treatment for leukemia. I was very excited that on January 10th, because I am a volunteer, I joined Dr. Susan Love and the Community Engagement Team at the Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation for an interactive, informative webinar to learn more about the Foundation, its signature Army of Women Program, and mobilizing the community to help create a future without breast cancer!

For me it was so exciting to hear her voice . I am so used to her being at so many breast cancer events and I missed her. I was also pleased that when I asked her “Although I am very excited about the deadline to end breast cancer in 2020, what is being done to help the metastatic community now?” She expressed that it was an important question and went in to some details about advances being made in the metastatic setting especially in relation to molecular profiling and understanding why it occurs. There is still so much work to do especially when it comes to metastatic breast cancer.

If you don’t know about Dr. Susan Love’s Foundation please click on the links below to learn more. You don’t have to have had breast cancer to join. In fact many of the studies are for women who have not had breast cancer, so please take a look and see if you can join to help!

LINKS FOR INFORMATION:

Dr Susan Love’s Research Foundation

Army of Women

January 2013 – Studies You Can Join

The Health of Women (HOW) Study

Dr. Susan Love’s statement about her return:

Back in Action

By Dr. Susan Love On Wednesday, January 16, 2013 · 70 Comments

First of all I want to announce, fanfare please, that I am back to work at the Foundation!  I am feeling stronger every day with my new bone marrow and very short hair.  If I were to encapsulate in one word what my recent experience with leukemia has inspired, I would have to say impatience. I have talked for years about the collateral damage that patients experience from cancer treatments and now I know them first hand.  They are not acceptable!

While we all want a cure, we have to focus collectively on finding the cause!  I have come back to work with new energy focused on research strategies going forward that can have an immediate impact on women’s lives and move  us closer to finding the cause and true prevention! I told you I was impatient!  Stay tuned, as we will need all of you in the Army of Women and Health of Women Study (HOW) study to participate as we move forward!

While out on leave, my team at the Foundation has been steadfast in their efforts to introduce our innovative research projects.  We launched our Bacterial and Viral Diversity Study in collaboration with Delphine Lee MD at the John Wayne Cancer Institute this November. This is a very exciting exploratory study to see if a virus or bacteria could cause breast cancer.  We have already begun out sample collections at the Foundation.  We are collecting fluid from the ducts of Army of Women volunteers and  characterizing all of the non-human DNA we can find.  Then, we will match it to known viruses and bacteria and see who is there!  This is the first step to determine whether breast cancer could be caused by a virus or bacteria.  I’m thrilled to be back doing research and to have this exciting project underway.  Updates to come!

Please Join the Dr Susan Love Research Foundation and the City of Hope in the How Study

What is the Health of Women (HOW) Study?

The majority of women who get breast cancer have none of the known clinical risk factors. This means we don’t know what causes breast cancer or how to prevent it. The HOW Study is a first-of-its-kind international online study for women and men with and without a history of breast cancer.  We will collect information about your health, your job, your diet, and your family history, among other topics that can help us get a better understanding of breast cancer and its potential causes.  Periodically, we will send you questionnaires about anything and everything. All you have to do is fill them out online. It’s that simple. This is a partnership and we need you for the long haul. The more questionnaires you fill out, the more information we will have that can help us have a better understanding of why women get breast cancer.

Who is HOW?

HOW is all about you and what you can do to end breast cancer. HOW is also about the researchers who can use this data to have a better understanding of ways we can prevent breast cancer. HOW is all of us, working together, to bring an end to this disease. The HOW Study is being conducted at the Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation, in collaboration with City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Go to: https://www.healthofwomenstudy.org/Default.aspx

With Leukemia Dr Susan Love Continues to Inspire Us

When l read the terrible news on Dr Susan Love‘s Blog that she has leukemia, I was shocked. I just couldn’t believe that such a great person like Susan could have this terrible disease. She is so dedicated to her work and I am so honored that she has come to so many events that I have also gone to.

My favorite event was when the BCCRF (Breast Cancer Care and Research Fund) headed by Michele Rackoff organized their first summit Saturday September 4th called “Taking Action to End Breast Cancer-A Women’s Conference” in Manhattan Beach. The speakers were Dr. Leslie Bernstein (Epidemiologist & Researcher), Dr. Lupe Salazar, (Medical Oncologist & Immunologist), Michele Rakoff (patient advocate) and Dr. Susan Love. After they spoke Susan had a book signing and my friend took a photo of us.

After that we had a lovely luncheon and Susan sat at my table as we all discussed breast cancer. She was so fascinating to listen to and I really appreciate they way she spoke with us in such an inclusive way. I asked her some questions and her brilliant mind had me mesmerised by everything she was talking about. We talked about the slash and burn approach to breast cancer, whether we are using the right treatments, and how we are going to change the conversation so that we finally make progress in ending this disease. Susan is also so down to earth. We also talked about  her Army of Women. I just finished participating in one of her Army of Women Studies the day before she announced her illness.

Susan started her treatments in the hospital on Monday, June 18th. Leave it to her to say to her friends on Facebook “I have  signed up for a free month of Amazon Prime and streaming Netflix …. I start treatment Monday and face 4-6 weeks in a hospital room! But will have wifi….so stay tuned”! She is such an all around giving person of her time and energy. She has so much grace and cares so much about breast cancer. Her book kept me company while I had to learn what I was facing when diagnosed, had surgery, did chemo, radiation and then had my recurrence. I also looked up everything for my friend Lila who died in January from breast cancer when she had her recurrence in 2009. In fact I made sure I got the latest edition to try to find any bright spot I could about her disease.

I just keep wishing I could do something for her. Of course I have said every prayer I can think of and I am also frightened. I know that she will fight this and keep her awesome personality throughout all of her treatment. But still this kind of treatment is heavy stuff no matter how strong anyone is. Leave it to Susan to have such a bright attitude. Today Susan said, “Day 3 So far so good…doing laps around the floor and found an electronic piano to practice!” She has such great wit.

I have decided because she is going through this with so much positive energy that I am going to follow her lead. Her bravery, humanity, and humor is so inspiring. Keep it up, Susan and thank you for being  in our lives. My prayers and thoughts are with you and the rest of your family.