Elevate attention to metastatic cancer

On Jan. 29, a bill designating February as Metastatic Breast Cancer Awareness Month was signed into Florida law. To date, MBC had only one day obscurely embedded within October’s “early stage” Breast Cancer awareness month.

More than 60 percent of Americans claim little or no knowledge about metastatic breast cancer. This is a brutal, insidious and lethal disease claiming more than 110 lives every day in this country. MBC patients, both women and men, and their loved ones are all too aware of metastatic cancer and its accompanying draconian medical treatments and grim prognoses.

My beautiful, vivacious and beloved wife, Diana, who served 30 years defending her country and was one of the first women on Navy ships in the 1970s, fought her MBC with that same courage, fortitude and faith. She lost her valiant battle. Cancer spread to her bones and vital organs, despite the myriad surgeries, radiation and chemotherapy treatments.

The tragic fact is that a third of all patients treated for earlystage breast cancer will progress to MBC. It’s the second-leading cause of cancer deaths among women today, afflicting more than 150,000 in America, without the front-page headlines given to Ebola or the Zika virus.

MBC must be given the cancer moonshot level of attention, resources and research it truly deserves. Otherwise, Diana’s suffering and tragic death, and that of so many others, will have been in vain.

Rick Wilson Orlando