Living with....

I live in Australia and many of you do as well....round about 21 million others....this is what we are living with

Cancer in Australia

• An estimated 114,000 new cases of cancer were diagnosed in Australia in 2010.
• 1 in 2 Australians will be diagnosed with cancer by the age of 85.
• Cancer is a leading cause of death in Australia – more than 43,000 people are estimated to have died from cancer in 2010.
• Nearly 15,000 more people die each year from cancer than 30 years ago, this is due mainly to population growth and aging.  However, the death rate (number of deaths per 100,000 people ) has fallen by 16%.
• More than 60% of cancer patients will survive more than five years after diagnosis.
• The survival rate for many common cancers has increased by 30 per cent in the past two decades.
• The most common cancers in Australia (excluding non-melanoma skin cancer) are prostate, colorectal (bowel), breast, melanoma and lung cancer.
• Around 434,000 people are treated for one or more non-melanoma skin cancers, with 448 people dying in 2007.
• Cancer costs more than $3.8 billion in direct health system costs (7.2%).
• $378 million was spent on cancer research in 2000-01, 22% of all health research expenditure in Australia.       

This week I sat with two friends both living with cancer. One has breast cancer. The other friend had such a rare, aggressive cancer that the surgeons  had to remove her eye. I lost my younger brother to cancer as well as my grandfather. There is probably not one family in Australia that hasn't been affected in some way.
Let's support cancer research and hope for hope.