According to a story from philly.com, it was August 2018 when Lisa Semple of Cherry Hill was first diagnosed with breast cancer. Unfortunately, her breast cancer had reached stage four, or metastasis, which is when the cancer begins to spread to other parts of the body. Metastatic breast cancer is pretty rare and it is often lethal. To make matters worse, her cancer was also triple negative, meaning that hormone therapies were out of the question. The effects of the disease soon cost her the use of her left arm. She ultimately dedicated her final months to the creation of an art show that consisted of painted portraits of both loved ones and strangers.
About Metastatic Breast Cancer
Breast cancer itself is not a rare disease, but it is rare for breast cancer to metastasize, or spread to other areas of the body. There are about 150,000 people in the US that have metastatic breast cancer. This is because that, generally, breast cancer is detected fairly early on in most cases and treatments are effective enough for survival rates to be quite high, at least in the developed world. In the US, for example, the five year survival rate is 85 percent. Risk factors include obesity, alcohol consumption, tobacco smoking, radiation, exposure to certain chemicals, certain genetic variants (such as BRCA mutations), and hormonal birth control. Breast cancer can spread to a variety of sites, such as bones, lungs, brain, liver, and nearby lymph nodes. Symptoms vary depending on the site of the metastases. Metastatic breast cancer is often lethal and cannot be cured. Click here to learn more about metastatic breast cancer.
Lisa’s Story
Lisa passed away on December 23rd, 2018 before she was able to see the completed art show. She leaves behind three children and was only fifty years old.
The art display consists of 19 individual portraits. Lisa had always planned on opening up her own art gallery once she had retired. The people that were selected for portraits are cancer patients or survivors and often people who were an active part of Lisa’s life at some point or another.
Ultimately, the art show is a message of how cancer can affect the lives of everyday people.
