It is breast cancer awareness month.

Most of us think of breast cancer as a woman’s disease.

It’s not.

Men do indeed, have breasts.

In our country, the ration of women to men with breast cancer is 100:1. This is not an astonishing statistic, unless you happen to be one of the 2,000 men a year that are absolutely shocked to hear the words, “You have breast cancer” from their physicians.

While it is rare, our men: our husbands, fathers, sons, nephews, grandfathers, all need to be aware of the possibility that they in fact can get breast cancer.

I’m fully aware.

My Father has Breast Cancer.

Post a mastectomy, multiple rounds of chemo, and unabashedly changing his diet to a plant based one, he is getting back to normal.

Finally.

We are awaiting the results of his yearly PET scan, and are quite hopeful things are fine.

Here are some facts for you:

Symptoms of male breast cancer include the same as symptoms in women: Breast lump, changes to the nipple or breast skin, or even discharge of fluid from the nipple. The treatment is usually a mastectomy and any combination of radiation, chemotherapy and hormone therapy.

Our men don’t sit for routine screening mammograms. BUT, they should perform routine breast exams, just like you, once a month. Most male breast cancer is found between the ages of 60-70.

Pull your man aside and teach him how to do the following. You could be saving his life.

You DO know how to do this for yourself, don’t you?

Here’s the technique for teaching a man to do a self breast exam:

1. Make yourself soapy.

2. Place your left arm above and behind your head. With the three middle fingers of your right hand, press your breast against your chest wall.

3. In a circular motion, feel small portions of your left breast, going around until you have covered the entire breast and underarm. Make sure you do it slowly.

4. Repeat using your left hand to examine your right breast.

Look for lumps, nipple discharge, or breast changes. Tell your doctor about the changes!

What an encouraging thing it has been this month to see all of the pink appearing on so many products across the country! I even saw Cat Food today in a pink bag! Go Purina! Thank you.

My prayers are with all of the victims!

Let’s get a little shot of blue in with all that pink!

Yours in Health,

Whitney Cabrera RN, BSN