October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Today’s Daily Drum features an article for young African American women coping with breast cancer by freelance writer and breast cancer survivor Zekita:

Learning that you have breast cancer can be one of the most shocking and life altering moments of your entire life. But the diagnosis, the treatment,and the recovery do not have to be a grim experience.

The initial diagnosis can bring on feelings of not only worry, but life’s fragility. Your time becomes precious and your sense of purpose kicks into overdrive. Breast cancer is affecting more young African American women each year and the ages continue to get younger. But the diagnosis, the treatment, and the recovery do not have to be a grim experience. Yes, it’s extremely hard and will probably be the hardest thing you will ever have to go through in your life.

Questions may arise such as: How did this happen? Why me? And what am I going to do now? I had all of these same questions, after all, I was only 31 years old and in good health. These are common feelings among women who have been diagnosed with this disease. What is more important than the initial shock and the treatment and even surgery, is the mental state of the woman after she learns that she has breast cancer.

For every woman who has recently been diagnosed and for every woman who knows another who has been diagnosed there are five rules that we must all follow in order to ensure that our lives and the lives of our loved ones will be fulfilled while we take this journey.

For the month of October, the National Breast Cancer Coalition (NBCC) is featuring daily myths and facts about breast cancer:

NBCC has a long history of challenging the status quo in the science and public policy of breast cancer. This October, we’re challenging the commonly held beliefs people have about breast cancer risk, prevention, treatment and cure.

Each day for the month of October, NBCC will reveal a myth or truth about breast cancer, each backed, as is our way, by science, documented by credible and trusted sources and chosen because it is often misunderstood by or misrepresented to the general public.

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