Thursday, June 12, 2008

Breast Cancer Awareness

Two dear friends, young moms with small children, have recently been handed this diagnosis. The information below from this important meme by Stina is a must read. This meme is to help spread the awareness on the ‘Breast Cancer Awareness’ month of June. Please help our fellow women in passing on the importance of regular examination and early detection of breast cancer in order to catch this disease when it first erupts, maximizing the chance of survival and recovery.

Here are several facts on breast cancer that everyone should know about.

• The first sign of breast cancer usually shows up on a woman's mammogram before it can be felt or any other symptoms are present.
• Risks for breast cancer include a family history, atypical hyperplasia, delaying pregnancy until after age 30 or never becoming pregnant, early menstruation (before age 12), late menopause (after age 55), current use or use in the last ten years of oral contraceptives, and daily consumption of alcohol.
• Early detection of breast cancer, through monthly breast self-exam and particularly yearly mammography after age 40, offers the best chance for survival.
• Ninety-six percent of women who find and treat breast cancer early will be cancer-free after five years.
• Over eighty percent of breast lumps are not cancerous, but benign such as fibrocystic breast disease.
• You are never too young to develop breast cancer! Breast Self-Exam should begin by the age of twenty. (Ladies, this is important to teach your daughters when they hit puberty. If they get in the habit when they're young, it's much more likely they'll continue as they get older.)

3 comments:

Ericka said...

Hi Jane,
I, too, am dealing with a lot of cancer right now. A close aquaintance has been diagnosed with aggressive cervical cancer and (I haven't told anyone yet) but my mom with mulitple myeloma. This is on top of my step mom just passing from cancer.
I have to be honest, I'm freaking out right now.
My family went to the dr for our homestudy and I was talking to our dr who told me that 1 in FOUR women will be diagonsed with cancer in their lifetime and 1 in THREE men.
The statistics are frightening.
Praying for peace and healing for ALL those affected by cancer - your friends, you and all the families.
Hugs,
Ericka

Stina said...

Thanking you for posting this!

Anonymous said...

My Godmother/Aunt (age 70) had a mammogram in March and it came out FINE. She then detected a lump a month later. It's cancer and she's been undergoing chemotherapy for the last two weeks. How can it be that one has a clear mammogram one month and two and a half months later is undergoing chemo?! It's a very scary disease. Thanks for posting this, Jane.