Be Aware, The Encore

This was originally published October 2, 2012. The message is still timely. Read up, yo.

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It's October, and that means Breast Cancer Awareness month.

Pink ribbons, pink bagels, pink hair extensions, pink socks on football players, all designed to make us more aware of breast cancer.

I guess because I have been so very vigilant about self-examinations and mammograms myself, I have trouble believing that there are women out there who are really not aware of the very real risk of developing breast cancer.

Wrong.

A recent study sponsored by Medco Health Solutions Inc. found that half of U.S. women over the age of 40 fail to get an annual mammogram. Over 200,000 U.S. women are diagnosed each year with invasive breast cancer, and nearly 40,000 women will die this year from the disease. According to the American Cancer Society, the chances of a woman having invasive breast cancer at some time in her life are 1 in 8. Her chance of dying from it is 1 in 36. It is the second most common cancer among women, after skin cancer (insert sunscreen speech here), and is the second leading cause of cancer death in women, after lung cancer (insert quit smoking speech here).

Yes, I brag about my awesome new boobies, but ladies, seriously, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU THINKING? It's no way to get a boob job.

Perform monthly self-examinations. Be familiar with your grrrls so you can recognize any changes in them (I found my "jellybean" through self-examination and knew it wasn't like even the worst fibrocystic tissue I had). 

GET YOUR ANNUAL MAMMOGRAM! No excuses. I don't care if you say it hurts when your boobies get smashed between two steel plates. Mastectomy and lumpectomy surgeries and the subsequent treatments hurt far worse. Put on your big girl panties (pink ones, of course) and deal with it.

That is all.