October is the Breast Cancer awareness month.
This year my friends are raising awareness about Breast Cancer on Social Media networks, especially Facebook, through a meme that has to do with figuring out the best place you keep your bag!!! For example-"I like it on the couch", "I like it on the kitchen counter", "I like it on the dresser"- double entendre, no doubt, but catches attention of our male ilk and well, that’s the idea!! :)
I hope women discover breast cancer at an early stage as it greatly increases their chance of survival. But as I found in my mum’s case, not everyone gets lucky. Many of them succumb to the ferocity of the disease. Over 90% of all patients with cancer spend some time in hospital and in their stages last of life, more than 70% happen to be in a hospital or in a hospice. Most of them find it frightfully expensive to afford good quality hospital care. I am sure many who can afford would like to be with their near and dear ones and desire to die at a location that is a little more intimate and personal than a hospital, however wonderful it may be. But it’s not always possible given the difficult symptoms and lack of practical help at home. Patients who are frightened, insecure, or lack confidence in their support network or even their loved ones who only wish the best for them are more likely to seek urgent admission to a hospital or hospice, even when death is imminent.
Patients with advanced diseases require continuous care and attention for the rest of their lives. They are also in need of regular social, psychological and spiritual support in addition to the medical and nursing care, that is readily accessible and available as close to home as possible. There is enough social capital available to build a ‘safety net' in the community around these patients. And that really is the rationale of the Palliative care movemement and the aim of the Concern without Borders campaign. Join the campaign to determine how you can make a difference.
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