RIP Holley Kitchen, the MBC Mom Who Reached Millions

We were so very sorry to learn Holley died today, January 12, 2016.  She was 43 years old.

“Our hearts are broken as we share the news that Holley peacefully passed away early this morning,” writes Holley Facebook page friend and administrator. “She was surrounded by love, as she has been in every moment of her life. . .Details regarding Holley’s services will be forthcoming. Please respect the privacy of those closest to Holley as they grieve and make all the necessary arrangements. Thank you for your unending support and love.”  ‪#‎Lifer‬

Anyone who wishes to support the Kitchen family financially, can find the links here. Our hearts go out to Holley’s family and friends. She was a true gem.

“I didn’t know my risk for reoccurrence or what metastatic disease even meant,” she told PEOPLE magazine about the impetus for her famous video. “I didn’t want someone feeling like I did upon reoccurrence,” she said. “You get a cancer diagnosis and then you get a re-diagnosis and it’s a punch in the gut.”

Millions of people around the world learned what metastatic breast cancer is thanks to Holley’s decision to share her story.

Thank you, Holley. May God bless and keep your family.

 

Here’s our original post about Holley’s video:

Holley Kitchen’s viral video tells her metastatic breast cancer story…and is educating millions of people around the world about Stage IV breast cancer. Since being posted on June 5, the video has gotten more than 10 million views and 400,000 shares. You can watch it on YouTube here.

Holley’s metastatic breast cancer video has been seen by millions.

Holley lives in Cedar Park, Texas. She told her story to KVUE’s Terri Gruca. “Holley was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer at age 39,” Gruca told viewers. “After a double mastectomy, chemo and radiation she thought she was cancer free. A year later she found out it had spread to her spine and bones.”

“I think it resonates with people because it’s honest,” Holley told the reporter. ” It’s what people don’t want to say and what people don’t want to hear,” she said.

We love Holley’s sense of humor and how she personalized her story. She’s also self-deprecating–she stresses that she’s not trying to make people feel bad–her mission is education. Like so many of us, Holley didn’t know what metastatic breast cancer was or how people got it until her own diagnosis.

Holley’s video shows what one person can do. Holley did a great job of educating herself about metastatic breast cancer. She is obviously very familiar with “The 13 Facts Everyone Should Know About Metastatic Breast Cancer.” Thank you,  Holley,  for the shout out to MBCN.org at the very end of the video!

We also love Holley’s term for someone living with metastatic breast cancer: #lifer. You can find Holley’s group” Facebook page here.

 

….and now BuzzFeed has picked up Holley’s story: http://www.buzzfeed.com/juliegerstein/this-womans-breast-cancer-journey-will-leave-you-speechless

A Wake Up Call for Young People With Metastatic Breast Cancer…And All of Us

By Katherine O”Brien, Secretary and PR Chair, MBCN

Do you remember “Love Story?” Oliver Barrett IV (Ryan O’Neal) and Jennifer Cavilleri (Ali McGraw) are the improbable lovers who defy parental disapproval and get married.

The only way to be surrounded by more sap would be to visit Vermont during the peak months of maple syrup production. Remember the hilarious send up on “Carol Burnett”?

Reviewers at Amazon call “Love Story” a cheesy sob story. (“If I ever hear Ali MacGraw say ‘preppie’ again I will probably spontaneously combust,” declares one commenter.)

Sobering Reality of Real Life…

I agree with all of those observations. And, a few years ago, I would also have hooted about a specific plot point—McGraw’s character dies at age 25 after being diagnosed with leukemia. Unfortunately, I have lost many friends to metastatic breast cancer (MBC). I know from painful experience that people do indeed die from breast cancer in their 20s and 30s.

Bridget Spence was 29.

What can you say about a 29-year-old-girl who died? That she was beautiful. And brilliant. And that this just totally sucks.

Bridget was diagnosed with breast cancer at 21. She had no family history. I used to think cases like hers were rare. Now I’m not so sure. As a patient advocate for people with metastatic breast cancer, I know a lot of people with both early and advanced breast cancer and they are young, old,  and all points in between. But I was frankly shocked when I saw the turnout for the “Under 40 & Living With Metastatic Breast Cancer” panel at the 2012 MBCN Conference.

Jen Smith, 36, has been living with Metastatic Breast Cancer since age 31, shortly after her son’s birth.

It seems like I know an awful lot of young mothers like Jen Smith  with metastatic breast cancer. Now, I consider myself fairly well informed on breast cancer risks such as gender, family history, dense breasts and so on. I knew that NOT having children increased a woman’s risk, due to the unopposed flow of estrogen. But until this year, I never knew that recent childbirth can temporarily increase one’s breast cancer risk. As noted on www.cancer.gov: 

Women who have recently given birth have a short-term increase in risk that declines after about 10 years. The reason for this temporary increase is not known, but some researchers believe that it may be due to the effect of high levels of hormones on microscopic cancers or to the rapid growth of breast cells during pregnancy (15). [Source: http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/reproductive-history]

I don’t recall ever seeing any article or other information on this issue. I would guess that many obstetricians assume—as seems reasonable—that cancer is a disease of aging. And nursing mothers have a host of potential breast problems: blocked milk ducts, soreness, etc.

But I don’t seem to be the only one who thinks more young women—mothers and non-mothers alike—are getting metastatic breast cancer.

Is MBC Incidence  Rising in Young Women?

Rebecca H. Johnson, MD, of Seattle (Washington) Children’s Hospital and the University of Washington in Seattle, noticed that evidence from the National Cancer Institute Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database suggested that  incidence of metastatic breast cancer in young women is on the rise. Johnson and her fellow researchers recently released a study that found “a small but statistically significant increase” in metastatic breast cancer over the last three decades among U.S. women aged 25 to 39 years.

The researchers found that in women aged 25 to 39 years, the incidence of breast cancer with distant involvement at diagnosis increased from 1.53 per 100,000 in 1976 to 2.90 per 100,000 in 2009, representing an average compounded increase of 2.07% per year over the 34-year period. No such increase was seen in any other age group or in any other extent-of-disease subgroup of the same age range.

The rate of increasing incidence of distant disease was inversely proportional to age at diagnosis, with the greatest increase occurring in women aged 25 to 34 years.

Dr. Johnson was diagnosed with breast cancer (presumably early stage) at age age 27. “I’d meet young women patients with breast cancer and it seemed like a lot of friends of friends had breast cancer,” she told @newsJAMA. “And yet the literature kept saying that breast cancer in young women was rare.”

Her  study didn’t  evaluate cause. “The next steps for researchers will be to examine potential causes for this trend and look at etiologies,” she said. “Given there’s such a change over a short amount of time, we may find modifiable risk factors or potentially toxic exposures that are fueling this increase.”

She further explained that the research shouldn’t be taken out of context.  “What the average young woman [under 50] should not do is go get a mammogram, because while on a population level we saw a statistically significant increase, it’s not a large increase of risk for an individual. One thing that has the potential to affect young women’s survival is earlier detection—seeing a physician if you find a lump instead of ignoring it.”

How Can We Manage What We Don’t Measure?

CURE magazine’s Dr. Debu Tripathy noted that the research is based on “cancer registry data, which is very good at capturing data at the time of diagnosis, but not long-term follow-up (other than death). So this is really looking at the less common situation of women who actually present with metastases at the time of their original diagnosis – which only happens about 5 to 10 percent of the time, and perhaps more so in women who do not have access to health care and present with higher stage cancers.”

Dr. Tripathy is correct about that cancer registry data. NCI and SEER database record only incidence, initial treatment and mortality data. And, as Dr.Tripathy further correctly observes, most people do NOT present with metastatic diagnosis. The cancer registry does not track recurrence—which is how the majority of people are thrust into the metastatic breast cancer ranks.

So here’s the good news: Most people don’t start with metastatic breast cancer, which is what the cancer registry tracks.

…And the bad news: We really have no idea what’s going on with, you know, the MAJORITY of people who are diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer after a recurrence. As Dr. Tripathy says, other than death, the cancer registry doesn’t concern itself with long-term data.

So to recap: We know for sure that 40,000 US people die from breast cancer every year. We know that 5 to10 percent of those with metastatic breast cancer were Stage IV from their first diagnosis. So what about the 90 to 95% of those who had a metastatic recurrence? The cancer registry does not track them—until they die.

“While [Dr. Johnson’s] report should not cause alarm or even affect any of our care guidelines, it may be a wake-up call to truly understand what might be driving this,” concludes Dr. Tripathy.

May be a wake up call?

MAY???

Well, gosh, no rush or anything. I mean, if it wouldn’t be a bother, maybe somebody could work on that truly understanding thing.

If I sound angry, it’s because I am. And so are my fellow patient advocates.

If Not Now, When?

“We need focused research to change incurable metastatic breast cancer into a treatable, chronic condition like HIV-AIDS–where patients can now live for 20-30 years with treatment after their diagnosis,” says Shirley Mertz, President of MBCN. “If gay men, who were then scorned by society in the 1980s, could demand and receive focused research and treatments for their disease, why can’t we women–who are wives, mothers, daughters, sisters and grandmothers AND over half of the population–receive similar research that will find strategies to keep us alive for 20-30 years?

“Are we not worthy of this effort?  Are we ignored because we quietly live with our disease?”

So, yes, Dr. Tripathy, you bet your stethoscope this is a wake-up call.

Because as Shirley says, “How many more thousands of us must die before the public and our sisters, who have survived early stage breast cancer, stand with us and for us?”

Cancer at any age and any stage is a terrible thing. But it is especially cruel when it happens to young people–women like Bridget Spence, who at age 29 should have just been getting started in life. There are too many women like Bridget, too many of my friends.

Olga Simkin was 34.

Maria Madden was 37.

Jennifer Lynne Strutzel Berg was 37.

Susan Niebur was 39.

Samantha Pritchett was 40.

Dana Robinson was 41.

Rachel Cheetham Moro was 42.

Zoh Vivian Murphy was 45.

Suzanne Hebert was 47.

Martha Rall was 49.

I have to repeat Shirley’s question. How many thousands more of us must die?

Thoughts on my 39th birthday

Guest blogger: Sandra Bishnoi

Editor’s note: Sandra wrote this piece on October 16, her 39th birthday and shared her thoughts on attending the recent MBCN conference.

The last couple of days have been very memorable. I traveled back to Chicago on Friday October 12 for the 6th Annual Metastatic Breast Cancer Network Conference. This is the first breast cancer conference that I have attended since my diagnosis and needless to say, I was a bit nervous about the experience. I knew that I was bound to learn a lot about new therapies and treatments for metastatic disease, but I was concerned about the emotional toll that the conference might bring. I was nervous about meeting young women like me, struggling to balance a life-threatening disease during the so-called “prime” of our lives.

I have to say, that I met so many amazing and wonderful women at this conference. I met women in their 30’s who had been battling this disease for over 8 years. I cried when a woman described her fear of dying before her 5 year old son was able to grow up, but who also found the strength to make dramatic life changes and truly “live” her life. There are so many people out there who are struggling with one treatment after another to try and extend their life until they can find the treatment that will lead to a “cure”. We really don’t talk about “cures” when it comes to metastatic cancer, not because we don’t want one (or many) but because of the fear of not being able to find one.

I met a lot of angry women at this conference, too. They are pissed off about having to face death before the age of 40, mad that most of America is more fixated on “boobies”, breasts, and “tatas,” than the fact that 40,000 men and women are DYING of breast cancer every year. And they are angry that only 5% of all of the money raised by the “pink” organizations actually go to metastatic disease. I know that this is sadly a marketing issue, but somehow it needs to change.

I also learned some good technical information. I heard a good talk from Dr. Steven Chmura at the University of Chicago, who spoke about “oligometastasis” and breast cancer. This was a term that I had never heard before, but a category that I fit into. Oligometastasis encompasses those patients with limited metastatic disease, specifically it is those that have fewer than 5 metastatic lesions of which are 5 cm or less. The promising news was that the 5 yr survival rate for oligometastatic patients was 59.6% in a U of Chicago study, compared to 11.6% for patients with full-blown metastasic disease. I need to do some research on this, but I found it to be exciting news.

My two major takeaways from the conference were:

1) I am (unfortunately) not alone when it comes to being a young woman with metastatic disease and

2) There is a lot of work being done in the area of breast cancer treatment, which will help provide additional options for those suffering from this disease.

Overall, I left the conference with a lot of hope and some sadness. Sadness for those that I met that are truly fighting their cancer with everything they’ve got and suffering tremendously in the process. Let us all hope that we do find something that can change the outlook for those with metastatic disease before it is too late for these strong, courageous women.

MBCN at C4YW

We travelled to New Orleans this past weekend to exhibit at the C4YW (Conference for Young Women Affected by Breast Cancer).  MBCN has always attended this conference as part of our mission to reach out to all those with metastatic breast cancer, but I was a newbie, a little wary of being drowned in Pinkness, since the conference is meant for young women at all stages of breast cancer. I was pleasantly surprised.

Yes, there was more than enough pink. The guy with the pink cowboy hat, sporting a pink bra, was parading around, but mercifully we avoided him. And there were more than a few people advocating to save the boobies, move beyond boobs, keep a breast, etc, etc. And I’m sure many of the attendees don’t realize that 20-30% of them will be joining our not-so-popular club.

But, to get to the good part:  a few workshops were offered for metastatic patients and at our booth we met the most wonderful young women! We had time to hear their stories and struggles, to offer advice, to share resources and information. I feel bad enough to have been diagnosed stage IV at age 58 (the median age), but it’s sobering to meet young women with metastatic disease who say:

“I was 29 when diagnosed.”

“I was pregnant when diagnosed.”

“I have two kids, ages 3 and 1.”

They are concerned, worried, overwhelmed, but also vibrant, determined and strong.

It renewed my spirit to meet them and increased my commitment to MBCN and to advocating for more research and more answers to what causes metastases and how we stop it; to raising awareness that breast cancer is not a pretty pink cheerleading event and early detection is not the cure; and to helping all those newly diagnosed with mbc to have the information they need to make the best treatment and lifestyle choices and be their own best advocate.

To my shock, even the pink cowboy, who is a strong Komen supporter and disciple of the positive pink, early detection-mammogram message,  tweeted this on Saturday: “Because my cancer is metastatic, don’t treat me like I’m a dead man walking.”  Hey, sounds like he understands our side of the breast cancer story. Is the pink haze clearing a bit? Is the message about metastatic disease slowly getting out there?

Ginny

MBCN board member