The Numbers

By Danny Welch, Dallas, TX
Shared by Marcie Garside

"When talking about Stage IV, I sometimes think we should just tell the

audience "just give me a number...somewhere between 1 and 2,400,000

people." Not a bigger number than that...just the number since 9/11 that

have died of metastatic breast cancer in the US. You want a bigger

number? One for the whole world? Nobody knows. You want the number

for those with Stage IV metastatic breast cancer now in the world? Pick

a number...nobody knows.

How about this...it's easier. How many people (mostly women) in the

entire world have had breast cancer? Don't know? Nobody else really

does either. Pick a number. It's a lot bigger than the 2,400,000 in

the last 10 years.

How many became metastatic?

Whatever number you came up with earlier, bump it up by 30%. That's the

number we know...the 30%..that's your metastatic number.

After all the best efforts of medical science, 30% become stage IV.

Those are the cases that are the failures. Lights out. Case closed. 

These patients cost a lot. They consume a butt-load of bucks.

It's not that they die...that's too easy. No, they languish. They take

their families down with them. Husbands, kids, grandchildren...I wish

the damage was ONLY financial. Money is the easy thing...and I'm not

talking about health care dollars.

Breast cancer intends to destroy you for generations...it has no limits.

The impact on the children and the surviving spouses is felt for YEARS

to come.

And what is significant about all this? Not the money. Not the years

of medical tests/work/treatment, the agony.

It’s the "number".

And is it too much effort? What do you think? Is it "my god why don't

we just let them all die? Die and get it over with." Would it surprise

you to know almost everybody who is Stage 4 MBC has already heard that

argument? They've heard it in spades.

If you don't want to hear about that number and the arguments, you're

wrong. You're wrong not because of the 2,400,000 and the 30% and the

blah blah. You're wrong because you missed the ONLY IMPORTANT NUMBERE

in the whole breast cancer discussion...

It's 1.

1 is a shocking number when it's your mama and you're a little boy in

first grade who is only 6. And your mama is the one.

1 is the look in your wife's eyes when she's had the stage 4 diagnosis

from the beginning. She's the one.

1 is the patient's name who is called by the infusion nurse and you know

it's your time...time to put down your magazine, leave the waiting room

and get a toxic drug you hope will keep you alive for maybe 30 days but

will make you deathly sick for the next 3 or 4 days.

1 is the next week, where...if you are lucky enough...you get to do the

same g_d damn thing.

1 is the week you get to live between oncologist visits hoping ANY new

drug can be pulled out of the hat to get you to next week ! And

sometimes the oncologist wants to talk in their office...which is the

worst of all.

1 is when the hospice person comes to your home, and tries to help you

be comfortable while your kids are running around trying to have some

kind of "normal life." You're the person in the hospital bed in your

living room. You’re the one.

1 is the casket at the funeral home...just 1 casket, with a pretty

taffeta lining, and holding a very nicely dressed and repaired body

weighing only 85 pounds.

1 is when it's you.

1 is...when it's made up of 2,400,000 individual "ONE" patients plus

innumerable patients who still have the disease and are battling it now,

plus all the thousands who we don't even know about...because they

weren't counted, but they fought and died just the same.

Breast cancer is not a numbers game...it's not stage 0,1,2,3A, 3B and 4

and stop there.

It's just 1.

Millions of American women and their families will experience the

significance of 1.

1 must be respected. And the disease must stop."