Beyond Pinktober: What Breast Cancer Awareness Means With Metastatic Breast Cancer

There are years when October looms, with plans for it taking shape starting in August or even earlier. Where to be, what to do and how to make pink matter.

I am far enough removed from my diagnosis with metastatic breast cancer (MBC) to, if not accept, then at least understand that the frenzy surrounding “Pinktober” is less about the patient and more about the money. Sometimes the money raised goes to valuable projects — breast cancer research and services that help people diagnosed with breast cancer — and sometimes the promise of all that money falls short.

Either way, it is hard to argue that breast cancer awareness and research haven’t benefited from decades of massive October marketing.

What Pinktober Means for People With Metastatic Breast Cancer

But for the person living with metastatic breast cancer, where there is still a dramatic underfunding of research specifically focused on metastasis and living with MBC, even the focus on funding comes with a lot of misgivings.

We are both underfunded in research, given the severity and incidence of the disease, and underappreciated by the focus on “beating” breast cancer.

Most of us will never “beat” MBC.

What we do is hope to live as long and as well as possible.

I have been living with MBC for more than a decade, twice as long as the most optimistic average, and I have seen many promises of a cure come and go — and even more friends die.

Metastatic Breast Cancer Is About Living, Not Just Awareness

In October, I might wear pink. I will do the things that many people touched by breast cancer do — runs, walks, purchases and donations.

But the most meaningful part is who I do these things for.

I do them for my friends newly diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer. For family members heading off for mammograms. And, most of all, for the people whose lives have been lost.

The artist who used her last days to make work reflecting how she envisioned metastasis.

The writer whose story about treatment-related diarrhea still makes me laugh years after she died.

The educator who stood up and fought for recognition of MBC within the wash of pink.

The scientist whose love of life made my heart grow.

The young mom who used her time to tell the stories of others living with MBC.

The poet who felt alone and scared until she found herself in a room with hundreds of others also living with metastatic breast cancer.

The athlete who never saw a challenge she couldn’t overcome.

The Nana, my own mom, with boundless curiosity and strength.

Remembering the People Behind Breast Cancer Awareness

Cancer is not a gift.

Yet I have been blessed to know and love these people and so many others who have died because of breast cancer.

October is a time to remember and a time to reaffirm in myself the lessons I learned from each of them.

It is a time to carry them with me in everything I do. To say their names. To allow their dreams to speak through me when it matters.

Because the loss of so much and so many, when it is given voice again and again, might bring the focus away from the pink and toward the people.

The people living with breast cancer.

The people living with metastatic breast cancer.

And the people we have lost.

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