Last October in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, I shared an essay written by Antoinette Truglio Martin, a post-50 woman who is living with metastatic breast cancer.
This year, I am continuing my support of those dealing with metastatic breast cancer (MBC), by sharing an initiative from Eli Lilly and Company called More for MBC. The initiative aims to bring more awareness, more research and more solutions to support people living with MBC and the communities that surround them.
What Is MBC?
Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women in the U.S.1 Progress in treatment and early detection has led to improved survival for people of a variety of ages and races.2 What most people are not aware of is that nearly 30 percent of these people will have a recurrence, and some recurrences may have metastasized, which means it has spread outside of the breasts.3 This advanced breast cancer is known as metastatic breast cancer.
Despite advancements in treatment, people living with metastatic breast cancer face significant everyday challenges that their family and friends don't always understand.
I'm striking my thriver pose to support #MoreforMBC.
Celebrities Advocate for #MoreforMBC
Spokespeople for the initiative include Academy Award–winning actress Mira Sorvino—a strong advocate for the MBC community due to the loss of her childhood best friend to MBC—and celebrity fitness expert, Anna Kaiser, best known for her complete mind, body and soul approach to fitness. They are promoting the thriver movement, as part of the #MoreforMBC initiative.
In the following video, Mira and Anna explain MBC and the thriver pose.
Anna created the thriver pose as a meaningful symbol for the MBC community that represents the strength and relentless spirit of women living with MBC. The yoga pose and routine are based on patient insights and a nationwide survey commissioned by Lilly, in partnership with leaders of the MBC community, which found that nearly nine in 10 people with MBC who have tried yoga say it helped manage their stress. (Being a yoga instructor and an avid yogini, I was pleased to learn that yoga can be helpful for those dealing with the stresses of MBC.)
The MBC community prefers to be referred to as "thrivers," not "survivors," a term often associated with people living with early stage breast cancer, because while they will live with MBC for the rest of their life, they are still thriving and determined to do all they can while living with this disease.
Share Your Best Thriver Pose
Anna and Mira encourage the public to strike the thriver pose and post pictures on social media to help drive donations to do more for MBC. For every post/share with the thriver pose, Lilly will donate funds to the MBC advocacy community to help people living with MBC.
For more information on #MoreforMBC, check out the Facebook page.
Thanks for your support.
1 National Cancer Institute. Annual Report to the Nation 2018: National Cancer Statistics.
2 Oeffinger KC, Fontham ET, Etzioni R, et al. Breast cancer screening for women at average risk: 2015 guideline update from the American Cancer Society. JAMA. 2015;314(15):1599-1614.
3 Saphner T, Tormey DC, Gray R. Annual hazard rates of recurrence for breast cancer after primary therapy. J Clin Oncol. 1996;14(10):2738-2746.
This post originally appeared on aboomerslifeafter50.com.
