Pink Aroostook coordinator
Cary Medical Center
My best friend was diagnosed with Stage 3 breast cancer at the age of 39. It was a bombshell out of nowhere as I imagine it is for most people diagnosed with this disease. One day you’re going about your business and the next, you are bombarded with a whole new world of medical terms and treatments…without any kind of medical training whatsoever! The only time I honestly had ever thought about breast cancer before that moment was when I was inundated with pink during the month of October or heard doctors insist that I do self-checks regularly. As far as I was concerned, I really had no responsibility at all until I turned 40 and it was time to start getting my mammograms. In that moment, as my world changed and breast cancer came crashing through my door, my whole perspective on breast cancer changed.
That’s why I support Breast Cancer Deadline 2020® — the National Breast Cancer Coalition’s campaign to know how to end breast cancer by January 1, 2020. The deadline changes everything — because we can’t afford more years of business as usual. In 1991, in the United States, 119 women died of breast cancer every day. More than twenty years and billions of research dollars later, that number is 108. That’s one death — one mother, grandmother, aunt, sister, brother, daughter — every 14 minutes. This year nearly 40,000 women and roughly 400 men will die of breast cancer in this country alone. Worldwide, that figure is more than ten times that amount.
The National Breast Cancer Coalition (NBCC) launched the deadline campaign because they weren’t satisfied with the pace of progress and how little has changed. NBCC did not just declare a deadline; they also have a plan of action. This blueprint focuses on primary prevention, stopping women from getting breast cancer, and understanding and preventing metastasis (the spread of cancer), which is responsible for 90 percent of breast cancer deaths.
But NBCC can’t do it alone. They need advocates and leaders to help change the conversation about breast cancer and to push for change where it is needed most. When I first heard about Breast Cancer Deadline 2020®, I was excited. Here was an organization committed to ending breast cancer in my lifetime. I wanted to be a part of that movement.
I have attended three NBCC Advocate Leadership Summits in Washington, D.C. and received countless trainings on breast cancer advocacy, research and policy since joining in 2011. I have also become an active member in the Maine Breast Cancer Coalition, our local affiliate, responsible for supporting the NBCC’s mission.
For the women and men who have breast cancer, the deadline is also a lifeline. It’s even more than that, though. It’s a way to ensure that future generations never have to hear the words “you have breast cancer.”
Some people have said it is impossible, but impossible things have been accomplished before. We got to the moon because a deadline was set. Polio was cured in less than a decade.
NBCC wants to move beyond the impossible and into a world without breast cancer. Will you join us?
For more information about the National Breast Cancer Coalition’s Breast Cancer Deadline 2020, visit www.BreastCancerDeadline 2020.org.
Bethany Zell is a member of the National Breast Cancer Coalition, the Maine Breast Cancer Coalition and the Project Director for Pink Aroostook.
