An estimated 232,340 new cases of invasive breast cancer are expected to be diagnosed among women in the US during 2013; about 2,240 new cases are expected in men. Excluding cancers of the skin, breast cancer is the most frequently diagnosed cancer in women.
Source: American Cancer Society
This was my post on Facebook this morning following some research I had been doing for work about cancer. Though I wasn’t researching breast cancer specifically, this statistic jumped out at me and I felt compelled to post it.
Within an hour there was a message in my inbox from a former colleague as he sat in the waiting room waiting for his sister who has recently been diagnosed with breast cancer. Their mother lost her fight with breast cancer twelve years ago.
I wrote him back, wishing him well, telling him they are in my thoughts, that I’ll be cheering his sister on from Michigan as she kick’s cancer’s ass, and that I will walk in her honor when I do my fifth Avon Walk this summer.
There are too many daughters, mothers, friends, sisters, neighbors, grandmothers being diagnosed with the disease. AND, as you can see from that statistic up there, men aren’t excluded from breast cancer’s evil grasp.
And the older I get and the more people I meet, the more I see lives affected by cancer. And I don’t like it.
I can’t do much about it. I don’t have the know-how to invent a cure. I don’t have the money to fund large research grants or any of that stuff.
So I walk. I’ve already walked 160 miles to fight breast cancer.
I’ll walk more.
And so I will carry his sister with me on my 39.3 mile and beyond, and I will root her on from Michigan. I will keep doing the things I can do to make a difference.
If you would like to support me in the Avon Walk, please click this link to donate. I know times are tough, but every dollar makes a difference. As I type this, I’m 27% of the way to my fundraising goal.
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