I love hearing from old friends. Anyone is much better at staying in touch with me than I am with them. But, a sad event was the reason for a call from an old friend.
I've never met this woman in person, but we've been online friends for about 14 years and have occasionally chatted on the phone. She called to share the sad news that another of our longtime online buddies died today from brain cancer. We three were part of an original group of foodies on another online community that started umpteen years ago. While Karen was always the glue that held us together, Joyce was our resident optimist.
Joyce was a 3-time survivor of breast cancer, and celebrated each cancer-free year like a birthday. Another of our friends, also a longtime cancer survivor, died of brain cancer a little over a year ago. I know of another breast cancer survivor who succumbed to brain cancer.
The most common source of brain metastases in males is lung cancer and in females is breast cancer (29), but with the increasing frequency of lung cancer in females, it is expected that for females this too will be the primary cause of metastatic brain tumors (22). METASTATIC BRAIN TUMORS, IRSA.org
Researchers at the National Cancer Institute have identified a gene that may play a role in breast cancer metastasis to the brain, according to a report in Molecular Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research., Gene Predicts Post-surgical Survival From Brain Metastasis Of Breast Cancer Patients, ScienceDaily.com
Maybe I'm answering my own question; there seems to be a connection between breast and brain cancer.