October marks Breast Cancer Awareness Month (10/02/06)

Mom has passed the magical five-year cancer survivor mark. She doesn't have to check in with her handsome surgeon ever again unless something drastic happens. He did tell her that she has to continue to have the hated mammograms.

I was much more relieved than she was at the news. She is still convinced that there is something wrong that the doctors can't find. I'm just tickled pink that her breast cancer is one less thing we have to worry about.

It is fitting that this month is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. The statistics used to say that women had a one in nine chance of getting breast cancer. Now the latest figures I've read are one in eight. Since I personally know two women who have had breast cancer and are now completely cancer free I figure that as long as I don't know more than 18 women then I'm safe from that particular malady.

I am getting tired of all the articles purporting to tell me how to avoid breast cancer. They all say to exercise, eat right and have regular checkups. Exercise and eating right may lower the risks of any number of things, including breast cancer, but they don't eliminate them as my friend found out the hard way. And as for regular checkups and mammograms preventing breast cancer - well that is a bunch of hooey.

What regular checkups and mammograms do is find the problem early enough for doctors to do something about it. By discovering the disease while it is still small it can be virtually eliminated and the patient can go on with her life without the specter of cancer constantly hovering over her.

While there are risk factors, some of which can be controlled, I have yet to see anything that says specifically that any one thing or combination of things will cause this frightening malady. Until the exact cause is found the best that we can hope for is to catch it early and destroy it before it destroys us.

When I was little girl I always heard about cancer eating away at people and from this I assumed that cancer was like an advanced form of erosion that left gaping holes in people.

Now I know that cancer is a growth; a collection of cells that divide and grow and don't know when to stop. In my mind I associate it with those bulgy, knobby things on old trees or like warts gone crazy.

According to the American Cancer Society about 212,920 women will be found to have breast cancer in 2006. That's a whole lot of panic and fear for the women and those who love them. Also according the American Cancer Society there are slightly over two million women living in the United States who have been treated for breast cancer.

While men can and do get breast cancer the rates are much lower. The American Cancer Society estimates that 1,720 cases will be diagnosed in 2006. Also the trauma involved is different. In some societies women's breasts were created for the sole purpose of feeding babies. In this country that is not the case. Breasts are tied to self-image and woe to the woman who dares breast feed her baby in public. No wonder many women fear this type of cancer more than any other. We are inundated with messages that tell us that our bodies are the most important part of us and that our breasts are the most important parts of our bodies.

Men's breasts, on the other hand, seem to be just an afterthought, serving no useful purpose except to take up space between the stomach and chin. Their biggest problem is being diagnosed with a "girlie" disease and also with the mammogram machine itself. For most men, there isn't much there to get squashed.

Since many, if not most, women give in to the fear and have regular checkups and mammograms, the death rate from this type of cancer has fallen dramatically from the time when my great-great grandmother died of it. I'd still like to know what the treatment was back in those days.

I am very glad that my mother and I live in the time when this dread condition can be controlled by excising (or should that be exorcising?) the tumor. I know she will miss her handsome surgeon but I am very grateful to have her around for a lot longer than I would otherwise.[[In-content Ad]]