Lenny Kravitz has shared that Johnny Cash held him when he learned of his mother’s death in 1995. He was so pained that he wrote a song about the moment. It begins as a fairly written love song with Kravitz singing, “I need your love in every way,” before it takes an unexpected turn in the chorus, “Hold me like Johnny Cash / When I lost my mother,” the star sings. “Whisper in my ear / Just like June had to.”
The legendary singer and actor’s mom was beloved actress, Roxie Roker. A star in her own right, Roxie played one-half of television’s first interracial couple in the blockbuster CBS series “The Jeffersons”.
She and Kravitz had a close relationship, but it was reported that the musician was on tour when Roker suffered major complications with her breast cancer diagnosis. She succumbed to the disease at the age of 66.
Her death came as a shock to her fans, but unfortunately, breast cancer is a serious illness that most should take seriously if diagnosed.
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Per the National Cancer Institute, breast cancer is defined as a gradual change and overgrowth of healthy cells, which have grown out of control and formed into a tumor. Tumors can begin in different areas of the breast, like the glands that make breast milk, the ducts that carry milk to the nipple, or other tissue regions.
Having a family history of breast cancer, including inherited gene mutations, can increase the risk of developing breast cancer.
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Data from the American Cancer Society reports that breast cancer can spread when the cancer cells get into the blood or lymph system and are carried to other parts of the body.
The lymph system is a network of lymph (or lymphatic) vessels found throughout the body that connects lymph nodes (small bean-shaped collections of immune system cells). The clear fluid inside the lymph vessels, called lymph, contains tissue by-products and waste material, as well as immune system cells. The lymph vessels carry lymph fluid away from the breast. In the case of breast cancer, cancer cells can enter those lymph vessels and start to grow in lymph nodes.
Most of the lymph vessels of the breast drain into:
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Typically, treatment plans are based on the type of breast cancer, its stage, and any special circumstances. Your treatment plan will depend on other factors as well, including your overall health and personal preferences.
The stage (extent) of your breast cancer diagnosis really determines treatment options. Generally, the more breast cancer has spread, the more aggressive a treatment may have to be.
Cancer’s spread is usually categorized by stage:
The American Cancer Society says that Stage 0 means that the cancer is limited to the inside of the milk duct and is non-invasive. Treatment for this non-invasive breast tumor is often different from the treatment of invasive breast cancer.
Ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) is a stage 0 breast tumor.
Lobular carcinoma in situ (LCIS) used to be categorized as stage 0, but this has been changed because it is not cancer. Treatment for stages I to III breast cancer usually includes surgery and radiation therapy, often with chemo or other drug therapies either before (neoadjuvant) or after (adjuvant) surgery.
These breast cancers are still relatively small and either have not spread to the lymph nodes or have only a tiny area of cancer spread in the sentinel lymph node (the first lymph node to which cancer is likely to spread).
These breast cancers are larger than stage I cancers and/or have spread to a few nearby lymph nodes.
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These tumors are larger or are growing into nearby tissues (the skin over the breast or the muscle underneath), or they have spread to many nearby lymph nodes.
Stage IV cancers have spread beyond the breast and nearby lymph nodes to other parts of the body. Treatment for stage IV breast cancer is usually a systemic (drug) therapy.
Cancer is called recurrent when it comes back after primary treatment. Recurrence can be local (in the same breast or in the surgery scar), regional (in nearby lymph nodes), or in a distant area. Treatment for recurrent breast cancer depends on where the cancer recurs and what treatments you’ve had before.
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