As you know, October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. We will see a lot on this in the media over the next few weeks to come. I have witnesses many brands jump on the big pink ribbon band wagon. Our staff at Pierce Mattie PR encourages all of our beauty and lifestyle accounts to get active and donate. We walked last year in the Revlon Walk and raised some cash for the cause. And sure some perceive the pink movement as a gimmick that has become almost like Christmas and used as just another way for beauty brands to make money.
The truth is that we have not really even touched the surface with treatments and creating a true dialog. Though the awareness is there and getting better people are still uncomfortable talking about the Big C. Especially when it’s men who have the breast cancer. According to the American Cancer Society, about 1200 new cases of breast cancer are diagnosed in American men each year (compared to about 200,000 cases of breast cancer in U.S. women). It’s also true that men don't perform self-examination, it's unusual for doctors to perform a routine breast examination in a man, and there is no such thing as screening mammography for men.
In January 2006 a very close loved one of mine was diagnosed with male breast cancer. A very rare form of cancer that is on the rise with men in their forties. Some people that I have shared this news with always react in a state of disbelief that men don’t have breasts and they have never heard of male breast cancer before.
My friend is very quite about his treatment and at times his silence has made it a challenge to be supportive. When I google “male breast cancer” or try to find a support group to talk to – they don’t really exist and the information that is available is very dated and not related to male interest profiles but rather medical statistics. Where are the real men that are suffering with this, who is their voice and what are they saying?
I like to talk and talk and talk about things until I am blue in the face. And this friend, well he is quite the opposite. This naturally has made me very mad. Not at him, but at the medical community. What is this disease going to take to get attention? When someone like a “Brad Pitt” gets diagnosed will we then have awareness so other men know how to get checked? I hope with this post I can create some kind of dialog this month.
What have I learned this year from my friend who has male breast cancer?
Live each day like it’s new and not wait till tomorrow. I try to call every morning and ever night just to say hello and hope that they are having a good day.
Give Cancer patients space to talk freely about their treatment but don’t push information or demand a medical update.
Don’t overwhelm them with the stress of your own problems as their immune system should always stay high. And the reality is that your problems will never ever be as big as theirs. Your ship could be sinking but you still don’t have cancer.
Tell them that you love them whenever you can
Cry your heart out but don’t do it in front of them or on the phone with them, never let them see you cry.
If a loved one has cancer and you would like more information on how you can help them feel better by looking better during their treatments please download this booklet that I co-authored called Look Good Feel Better for Men you can down load it here.
If you would like more research on this topic please go to:
Posted by Pierce Mattie on October 9, 2006 11:47 PM
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