The exponential growth of the survivorship movement increasingly is realized by the many long-term survivors who go on to become professional survivor advocates. These individuals have taken their learned experiences from diagnosis, through treatment and recovery, and become advocates participating in the national cancer survivorship movement. These people have effected change in public policy including appropriations for cancer research; pressed for more survivorship research; given public witness testimony at both the local and federal levels of government; and contributed to the body of knowledge about living a better quality of life after a diagnosis of cancer, either through professional journals, or the popular press.
By telling “one’s story,” the net is cast much wider. Advocacy training for media relations is a burgeoning field of interest among consumer groups today and provides yet another avenue for survivors to “testify” about their experiences.
As people with a history of cancer recount their stories in the community and to the media, they become recognized experts on the compelling issues that have impacted their lives and the lives of the community of survivors with whom they have become involved. Depending on one’s vocation, avocation, or other life circumstances, the interest one takes in sharing this experience is limited only by the desire to speak up — whether it is survivor-to-survivor in support groups, in the workplace, before state legislators, or to Congress. Advocacy is an invaluable skill set that can empower persons with cancer and can maximize the quality or their own survival as well as that of others.
