Over the weekend, pop icon Taylor Swift got personal during Global Citizen’s “One World, Together At Home” concert by performing her song “Soon You’ll Get Better,” which is dedicated to her mother’s battle with breast and brain cancer.
Swift, 30, may be known for her catchy songs and radio hits, but in honor of the concert she decided to share the extremely personal song with fans something she never thought she would do. The song, “Soon You’ll Get Better,” is about her mother, Andrea Swift’s, 62, battle with both breast and brain cancer. Andrea Swift is a two-time breast cancer survivor after being diagnosed in 2015 and 2019, but in January 2020 Swift told Variety that her mother now has a brain tumor which was discovered during chemotherapy treatments.
Read MoreHowever, amid the coronavirus pandemic, Swift clearly believes that this personal song might be a way to lift people’s spirits who are struggling during this uncertain time.
Breast Cancer Spreading To Other Areas
While fans don’t know the exact details of Andrea Swift’s case, there are instances where breast cancer can spread to the brain which is called a “metastatic brain tumor.” While this diagnosis is certainly frightening to many cancer patients, there are treatment options available. Patients can undergo radiation therapy to the whole brain with or without surgery, radiation therapy to the whole brain with or without stereotactic radiosurgery, stereotactic radiosurgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy in order to fight the tumor.
Kelly Shanahan, who is a doctor and currently battling metastatic breast cancer, told SurvivorNet that she refuses to be a statistic while fighting the disease. According to Shanahan, the life expectancy of someone with metastatic breast cancer is three years, and she is happy to report that she’s lived four years while after receiving the diagnosis.
“My greatest hope lies with research, because I know that the only thing that is going to save my life and the life of my fellow sisters and brothers with metastatic breast cancer is research,” Shanahan tells SurvivorNet.
Brain Tumors Associated With Other Cancers
Metastatic brain tumors are not only associated with breast cancer. In some cases of melanoma, the cancer can also spread to the brain as a tumor, but Dr. Anna Pavlick, Professor of Medicine and Dermatology at NYU Perlmutter Cancer Center, tells SurvivorNet that treatment options are similar.
“We use very focused radiation, either stereotactic radiation or Gamma knife radiation, which is essentially 200 beams of radiation that will target just that tumor, and try to burn out that tumor so that we don’t affect the normal brain and the cognitive functioning of patients,” Dr. Pavlick explains.
However, Dr. Pavlick is quick to point out that radiation is rarely used for patients battling melanoma.
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