Breast Cancer Awareness

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I've been tagged for an important meme by Stina. 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.)



Personally, I have been most remiss is having a mammogram. At age 45, I have never had one. But, my surgeon made a deal with me that he would not operate unless I had one. So, it's on the list of things to get done before July. I hope you won't wait so long.


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