It's finally October, and that means this month we will see football teams across the nation put on their pink socks and helmets. Stadiums will hang up banners with the famous pink ribbon. And there will be commercials that show a breast cancer survivor, with her thinned hair and a big smile on her face, that gives you chills and truly makes you understand what they mean when they say "fight like a girl."
I feel so thankful to live in a world where we dedicate an entire month to teaching women the importance of breast cancer prevention. A month of stories of how modern medicine caught it before it was too late. A month that we get to hear from women who have been through absolute hell stand up and tell us their stories of how they beat breast cancer. I feel even more thankful because I get to spend my entire career encouraging people to get screened before it's "too late." I get to be the one to tell the 38-year-old women that she's in remission because her instinct of a "weird lump and just not feeling right" was exactly the reason she needed to come to the doctors. And I get to be the one to give the last chemo treatment to your wife because we actually beat the cancer that we thought was going to beat her.
Each year, we raise almost 6 billion dollars in honor of breast cancer. That money pays for mammograms for women who can't afford it. That money goes toward research to create the strongest medicines to beat cancer. That money goes toward education and campaigns to teach women the importance of knowing their bodies. Almost six billion dollars spent, but it'll never be enough until this disease stops taking the most important women in our lives from us, always too young and always too fast.
Breast cancer doesn't discriminate. Cancer doesn't hold back on the mother of three young kids who need her because she's "too busy for a mammogram." Cancer doesn't hold back on the freshly retired woman who wants to spend every day of her newfound freedom with her husband of 40+ years. Cancer doesn't hold back on the 25-year-old girl with a booming career with plans to travel the world.
Here's the thing about cancer— you can never be too young, you can never be too healthy, you can never be too old, and you can never be too busy.
Cancer is evil, cancer is sneaky, cancer is scary, and cancer certainly doesn't hold back.
That's why it is every single person's job to encourage their loved ones to screen themselves before it becomes too late for them.
Check yourself, remind your mom, and encourage your friends. One screening can save a life, and that one life could save the world.
