It's that month again. You know, the one where all the high school football teams wear pink and cheerleaders get pink pom poms, maybe even put pink ribbons on their face during games?

Ever wonder why exactly we do that? Why exactly for once month the world explodes in pink ribbons? Well, the thing is, somewhere down the road, we lost the meaning behind this. We let some things that mean something become a nuisance in our everyday life.

But this is something that should not become a nuisance in our lives. Around one in eight U.S. women (about 12%) will develop invasive breast cancer over the course of her lifetime. For women in the U.S., breast cancer death rates are higher than those in any other cancer, besides lung cancer. In 2016, there are more than 2.8 million women with a history of breast cancer. This includes women currently being treated and women who have finished treatment.

There are 2.8 million women, just in the U.S. suffering from breast cancer. That is someone's mom, someone's sister, someone's wife. They are real people -- real women -- who are suffering; not just statistics. These women are fighting, with everything that they have, for their life.

It's hard to imagine that it will ever happen to you, but it can. With one in eight women developing breast cancer, it's highly possible that, in your lifetime, someone you know and love, or even you yourself, will be affected. It's time to realize that this is serious and that we need to make young girls aware of it. The more research that is funded, the higher chance we have of finding a cure.

These women deserve more than a month. They deserve more than a color. They deserve more than a ribbon.