I’m Mad as Hell

September 27, 2014
There is so much misunderstanding about metastatic breast cancer that I want to bang my head against the wall.
Vera has a better approach however; and that is to use her words to spread understanding and awareness. Read on to see her letter to the Today Show. And if you would be willing, pass it on.

Vera Writes —
You may have heard that Joan Lunden is going through breast cancer treatment. She was featured bald on People magazine and Today is doing a “Today Pink Power” show in October.

A friend of mine wrote to the show to ask that awareness of metastatic breast cancer be included. They invited her to appear on the show, only to un-invite her once they saw in her photo that she isn’t bald. They say they only want a group of women who are ‘bold and bald’ (their words) on the show to support the cause.

I was incensed at the ignorance and audacity of the Today Show. I wrote them an email, and published it on my Facebook pages too. Thought you might want to know about this.

Here’s my letter:

Hello,

I’m a metastatic breast cancer warrior. I’ve had this recurrence of breast cancer to my bones for the last 3 years.

My friend Lisa told me that you are only interested in women who are rendered bald by this disease.
I’ll have you know that 12 years ago, when I was bald from chemo, I was only stage 2 and had a 70% chance of never having cancer again.
Unfortunately I ended up in the unlucky 30% and here I am today.

That your news organization only wants ‘bold and bald’ women to stand around on the day you feature breast cancer is so highly offensive, I struggle for words to express to you, as someone dying from this disease, how insensitive and ignorant this truly is. Many treatments for end-stage breast cancer do not cause hair loss. It is one of the few indignities that some of us are spared in our last days.

Shame on you for putting shock value ahead of humanity. I will never watch the show again.

Vera Bierend
Stage 4 breast cancer patient
Santa Clarita, CA

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Categories: Blog.

My grandson has MS

September 4, 2014

I haven’t talked about this before. It was hard for my family to go public with this piece of information. Partly because we didn’t want to talk about it with other people. We wanted to curl around that bit of sadness, keep it to ourselves. Didn’t want to  pretend that our collective heart weren’t breaking.

My grandson, overnight, became the man I hoped he would be someday. Didn’t have a whole lot of indication that he was anything more than someone I loved dearly who liked to play computer games and didn’t have much ambition. I believed in him blindly because I loved him so much. Then this happened, this terrible diagnosis that had so much uncertainty surrounding it that no one knew what to expect from one day to another. My grandson, who managed to be born on my birthday,  stunningly and courageously taught our whole family how to live and to be.

Tomorrow our family and friends will gather together to celebrate this wonderful young man’s journey. Pray for him and all the others so afflicted.

Trevor’s Grandmother

 

Categories: Blog.

2nd Annual Metastatic Breast Cancer Conference LA County

September 1, 2014

Categories: Blog.