Pink Ribbon Culture - Wilful Ignorance?

My mother was diagnosed with breast cancer in December 2007 at the age of 56. It was caught early. She had felt what she thought was a lump in her right breast. A mammogram was ordered. Nothing showed up in her right breast, but the mammogram picked up cancer in her left breast. She was stage 1. She had a lumpectomy. She underwent a course of radiation. She was prescribed endocrine therapy for five years. The familiar tale of scores of women throughout the world.

My mother is a pragmatist. She knew her chances of survival were excellent but she also knew that there was a chance that the cancer might recur. We all knew actually. We were all clued in. She is still here, ten years later and the dastardly disease has not reared its ugly head again. Except in her youngest child. She will now have to witness me dying from the disease.

But what has surprised both of us since my diagnosis is how few early stage sufferers realise that their cancer can recur and possibly metastasise. My mother was aware that it could ten years ago. Where did she get this information? And why do others not know this? Has pink ribbon culture become more pervasive in the last ten years? Or was it as bad ten years ago? Was the information always there and is it now?

I was diagnosed de novo stage 4. If I was diagnosed earlier, I would want to have all the information. Are oncologists so keen to reassure their patients that they don't want to send any negative information their way? Are they afraid that the patient might be angry with them for telling them that there is a slim possibility of recurrence and metastasis? Part of the reason why I was diagnosed so late was because my general practitioner gave me false hope, telling me that it couldn't possibly be cancer in the breast of the 28-year-old sat in front of him, boobs flapping in the breeze. I wanted to hear that it was nothing. But, the thing is, it was something and him telling me otherwise didn't change that ugly fact.

There seems to be a disconnect between what patients are told and the statistics. Not everyone survives breast cancer. Not everyone who dies from it was a de novo stage 4 case. Therefore, a subset of the people who die from breast cancer were people who were diagnosed with early stage disease. These women got a nasty shock that the reassurances of their early stage days did nothing to prevent. Don't doctors have a duty to be brave and to give women all the information in a kind but firm manner? Let's give early stage women more credit. They can handle it.