118 Deaths a Day from MBC is Too Many: My Conversation with Kelly Shanahan, President, METAvivor

We couldn't be more excited by the 2nd inaugural episode of the Team Powdered Donut™ podcast with Kelly Shanahan, President of METAvivor. Gary and Kelly first met through the #bcsm tweet chat started on January 1, 2011 by Alicia C. Staley, Dr. Deanna Attai and the late Jody Schoger. Gary joined these chats to learn from those with breast cancer how to be a better caregiver to his late wife, Maureen.As Kelly and Gary discuss, when breast cancer becomes #MetastaticBreastCancer is when things go "all to heck," leading to 117/118 deaths a day from this stage of the disease. Research, like that funded by Metavivor, leads to hope, not just for MBC but early stage disease, too. 🍩 🩷Kelly Shanahan, METAvivor, PresidentIn 2008, I had everything going for me: a graduate of Bryn Mawr College and the University of Virginia School of Medicine, I had a busy and successful ob-gyn practice in South Lake Tahoe, CA; a precocious 9 year old daughter; and a well-used passport from traveling all over the world with my family to attend conferences, with a liberal dose of vacation on the side. When I was diagnosed with stage IIB breast cancer in April 2008, I considered it a mere bump in the road, returning to work two weeks after my bilateral mastectomy and continuing to work all through the four months of chemo.And for five years, breast cancer was an aside, something to put in the past medical history section of forms. Even when I developed sudden back pain, I never thought it could be breast cancer rearing its ugly head – a pulled muscle, a herniated disc but not what it turned out to be: metastatic breast cancer in virtually every bone in my body, with a fractured vertebra and an about to break left femur. I was diagnosed on my 53rd birthday.I have been extremely lucky, for after an unconventional 14-month course of combination IV chemo and zometa, followed by a more conventional aromatase inhibitor, I have remained NEAD – No Evidence of Active Disease — since April 2014. Neuropathy from the chemo did cost me my career, but I have found a new purpose in advocacy. I am a volunteer and grant reviewer for METAvivor; a member of the Metastatic Breast Cancer Alliance and the ABC Global Alliance; a consumer reviewer for the Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program; and past medical director of METUP. I will fight for more research funding for the already metastasized patient until my dying breath by continuing to contact my state and federal representatives and participating in legislative advocacy days on Capitol Hill, as I have since 2015.I am a mother, a wife, a daughter, a doctor, a woman LIVING with metastatic breast cancer. I am an advocate.