Landmarks across Minnesota, US light up for Metastatic Breast Cancer Day
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Forty-year-old Jodi Taylor is a wife and busy mom to two young kids. She’s also a cancer patient, diagnosed with an incurable disease called metastatic breast cancer (MBC).
"I was diagnosed when I was 37, I had some neck pain that began radiating down my left arm, it was getting progressively worse so I went to the emergency room to have an MRI," she recalled.
It was a tumor eating away at her vertebrae.
She’s underwent surgery and radiation, and now takes a daily dose of oral cancer medicines, hoping the combination will give her more time.
"With metastatic breast cancer, you’re in treatment for life, so as long as you are alive, you are in some form of treatment to try to keep the cancer stable," Taylor said.
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Metastatic breast cancer is referred to as the elephant in the pink room.
"I was surprised to find out with all of the cure campaigns and things like that that are out there, so little is going to actually researching a cure," she said.
Taylor said while 98% of all breast cancer-related deaths are from metastatic breast cancer, less than 5% of overall breast cancer research is allocated to fund MBC research.
"The more research we have, the more new treatments we can come up with, the longer I can live, the longer other people with MBC can live," she said.
Tuesday, 115 landmarks will be lit up in pink, teal and green to bring awareness to the disease.
"The 115 is significant because, each day, 115 women die from metastatic breast cancer," Taylor said.
It’s a statistic she hopes to outlive, for herself and her family.
"I try to give my kids as normal of a life as I possibly can, we try to do the same things that we would do before, like pumpkin patches or apple orchards, things like that. I hope that I am helping build those memories for them so that even if I can’t be there in the future they can remember those good times," she said.
The light it up event starts at 7 p.m. Tuesday night, and landmarks from Duluth to Rochester will change color to raise awareness about the deadly disease.