Going gray is what many women try to avoid, but this month, I need you to incorporate a little more of this neutral into your quarantine chic wardrobe because it’s Brain Tumor Awareness Month.
Before you judge, let me explain my seemingly casual introduction to this topic. My name is Megan, and at 32, I became a brain cancer widow and allowed some creative freedom on the subject.
I’m betting most of you associate brain cancer with the loss of American Hero, Senator John McCain, as you should. He was the poster boy for brain cancer because those tumors love a geriatric, white male, but if you believe you’re in the clear for this devastating diagnosis, you are way off the mark.
My husband was 34 when he walked into an emergency room with symptoms of headaches, loss of coordination, and mood swings. Not necessarily things that screamed brain cancer to us in the months before he was diagnosed because when you’re in your early 30’s you don’t think you’re a dead man walking.
Of all cancers, brain cancer is one of, if not, the most devastating, yet it receives very little funding and can only provide a patient with a handful of treatments with no cure in sight. What sets it apart from all other cancers is that it impairs a person mentally, physically, and psychologically. You simply cannot function the same with a tumor on your brain.
It’s also a death sentence.
According to the Cure Brain Cancer Foundation, brain cancer survival rates are the lowest of all cancers, with a 1% increase in the past 30 years. Despite this alarming data, there are still only five FDA approved drugs to treat brain tumors and no cure or any idea how to prevent them. How is it that we’ve come so little in so long?
With 80% of all cancers metastasizing into brain cancer, the need for more funding is glaringly obvious so that research can be done to find more than just a treatment, to find a cure eventually.
To raise awareness, you can do something as little as wearing grey to promote awareness, participate in an awareness walk or go big and donate money to the National Brain Tumor Society or the American Brain Tumor Association.
If there’s one thing I want you to do this month, other than donate is to pay attention to your body. If you are feeling any of these symptoms, get to the ER immediately because, just like my husband, it can happen to you on any given Tuesday.
Stay healthy, and wear your gray.
