Cancer is one of the leading killers in today's world. In fact, approximately 40 percent of men and women are likely to be diagnosed with cancer at any given time, and that's not even dying of it. Unfortunately, the statistics of being diagnosed with cancer and dying of cancer have been high for a while now, there are rumors of cures but those potential cures need to be tested over and over again before they can actually be put on the market for doctors to actually use. It is very likely that someone you may know has gotten diagnosed with cancer and it's a possibility that the cancer someone has been diagnosed with is something you can't hear enough of, or something you've never heard of before. I believe that this is something that people shouldn't ignore, besides the obvious reason of more patients with certain cancers, why are other cancers any less important?
By the age of 18, I have had very close people to me diagnosed with cancer. I have also came across many people I know that had people they know diagnosed as well. Whether or not you are the one who has people close to you diagnosed or someone you know has someone close to them diagnosed, you have to be strong for them whether you are ready or not.
Breast, lung and prostate cancer are the leading three cancers across the nation right now. I'm sure anybody reading this has heard of at least one of them, or have known someone who was diagnosed with one of those cancers. If that's the case, I hope that whoever was diagnosed pulled through and was able to defeat their sickness. Thankfully, with today's technology, it is a lot easier to tell and be cautious of the strange lump in your breast or prostate. Social media platforms have helped a lot with people who were diagnosed with those cancers or knew someone that was because they are able to spread the word about the small signs to look out for to call a doctor to get it formally checked out.
Mainstream media has made sure to spread awareness of those three cancers specifically, which is amazing because these cancers are so common that they should definitely be published as much as possible to try to avoid people not being aware of the sicknesses they could possibly be enduring. The problem I see with this is, what happens when you get a strange lump on your neck and you just keep telling yourself that it will just fade away, or when you have a couple serious migraines so you just diagnose yourself as one of the unfortunate ones that have a migraine disorder? While we're at it, let's just tell ourselves that our random weight loss was just good karma. All of the scenarios I just described are 'small' symptoms that could be warning signs of cancer. All of the scenarios I just described are scenarios that happened to three people extremely close to me and unfortunately, two of them were not able to survive. These people each looked past what they thought were just minor problems until it got too bad to where a doctor had to break it down to them what was actually going on.
Personally, I believe that there is not enough awareness spread of cancers that aren't as commonly diagnosed and/or just as bad as the more commonly diagnosed ones. Every cancer deserves to be recognized because just looking past that strange lump could lead you to many more problems than expected. It's completely normal to believe you're indestructible and think that there's no way something so bad could happen to you, it's human, but also don't be afraid to be called 'dramatic' or 'paranoid' if you have something a little off with your body and you want to talk to the doctor about it. However, don't rush to scan through the yellow pages for the best oncologist on the east coast. Just, be aware.
Lavender is the color ribbon that resembles all cancers, please spread awareness in any way you can. It's very important that more cancers are recognized, it might even turn into life or death situations.
