Eva Longoria is helping spread the word about metastatic breast cancer. The actress has a sister with special needs that was diagnosed with stage 1 breast cancer, which thankfully was caught during a routine mammogram.
“I never said anything [at the time] because it was a private thing. I was my special needs sister too so she had a hard enough life as it is,” she said to People. Unfortunately, other women are not as lucky as her sister because one in three women who get metastatic breast cancer, where it spreads throughout the body, do not survive.
Longoria admits that she didn’t know much about breast cancer or metastatic breast cancer. “So I thought, how many people don’t know about this? And if I have a platform that can help women learn about this, if I have a platform that can help raise funds to find a cure for it, that’s even better,” she said.
She’s teamed up with Novartis to launch the Kiss This 4 MBC (Metastatic Breast Cancer) to generate research funding and support for this type of cancer. “We’ve had so many advances in preventative and early stage and that’s great because there’s nothing better than stage zero. But these women are stage four and they usually have a 2-year life expectancy. And there is no cure so these are the women in most need,” she says.
Longoria’s advice to women is to take care of their health. “Women are horrible at putting themselves first…and the one thing that suffers is your health,” she says. “So I would encourage every woman that comes here to be their own advocate,” she added. “because you gotta insist on that test or insist on that mammogram — insist on that extra step. And don’t take no for an answer when it comes to your own health. That’s a general life thing, not just health. It’s the airplane thing, put your own mask on before helping others.”
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As part of the campaign, The Metastatic Breast Cancer Network (MBCN) and METAvivor will receive a donation ($10) from Novartis to fund metastatic breast cancer research for each social media post using the hashtag #KissThis4MBC. Help spread the love so they can find a cure for this horrible disease!