Metavivor Healthy Survivors

What we call ourselves impacts how we see ourselves. So I was intrigued but not surprised when I heard a new word to add to my survivorship lexicon: metavivor.

According to the Metavivor metastatic breast cancer website, a metavivor is "A person living with a metastasis. It combines “vivor” (from “survivor”) with “meta” (from “metastasis”)."

Founded by some proactive metavivors, the work of this non-profit totally volunteer organization is dedicated to raising awareness, providing support and funding research that targets the 30% or so of breast cancer patients who are or will be living with metastatic disease.

Their mission is to 

• offer local support
• help people elsewhere establish support programs
• seek out speaking engagements, media opportunities, and other venues to make their voices heard
• award a MBC research grant every year

I venture to say that people who call themselves metavivors are striving to be Healthy Survivors who see themselves as living with metastatic breast cancer -- not dying from cancer.

Comments

[Jessica Galant]

Dear Dr. Harpham,
I am applying to medical school learned about your blog. I'm so excited to read about your experiences and your insight on what it means to be a doctor, a patient, and a survivor. I look forward to learning and preparing for my medical journey! Thanks for starting this blog!

[Anonymous]

There is a nice article about one of the founders of Metavivor:

http://www.hometownannapolis.com/news/TOP/2011/10/28-39/Local-woman-starts-nonprofit-for-metastatic-cancer.html

[Wendy S. Harpham, MD]

Dear Jessica, Welcome aboard!

Dear Anonymous, Thank you for the link to the excellent article.