I lost my mom to BC on December 23rd.  I hope you wouldn’t mind me expressing my bitterness regarding the so-called "cure".

It is the same old lie also here in Turkey, where I am writing from. Fortunately the pink ribbons haven’t come here yet but you get to read about how you could get cured with an early diagnosis etc etc. I used to believe in all these crap because I thought my mom was the living proof for what they are writing. She was diagnosed back in 1982 at the age of 37 and enjoyed a disease-free survival period of 12 years. In 1994 she had her first recurrence followed by another disease free period of 6 years. So she passed the 5-year-mark twice. Was she cured? No. At the end of 2000 she noticed a tiny nodule (only 3mm) on her mastectomy scar, a year later she was diagnosed with mets to lung. Actually, it wasn’t mets first. Initially it was a solitary mass and the doctors could never rule out a second primary which might be due to the radiation therapy she received back in 1982. Despite the lung mets, she remained almost symptom free until spring 2004 when she developed spinal cord compression but remained ambulatory. This was the first time she had symptoms due to the cancer itself, not as side effects of the treatments. I wasn’t told until then that my mom is stage IV and could not believe that I would lose her because of BC. In fact, I still can’t believe that at the end she died of this disease. I remember telling people that my mom “had” BC. Sometime in the past! I even remember telling people that if you should get cancer, you better get BC. You would maybe lose your breast/s but you can surely survive without them! So I thought. I shouldn’t have been soo ignorant about the fact that people die of this disease. I should have known better. In fact, I had developed a selective recognition for BC years ago, at least since I was eleven. I mean I have being reading/watching every single article, program etc. about BC for years. But they don’t tell you that you might still die of BC even if you have an early diagnosis, even if you are diligent with your check-ups following your treatment. My mom was diligent. How would she notice a 3mm nodule otherwise? She must have never believed that she was completely cured. But I did and that's why I am soo disappointed now. Maybe the patients themselves never believe they are cured for good. You would know it better. I hope your efforts to be seen and acknowledged will save the loved ones of stage 0,I,II,III patients from the delusions I had. Because ignorance is not necessarily a bliss. -Ozdes Bodur