October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month!

I don't know why this year, but breast cancer awareness month has touched me in a way that it never has before. Maybe it is my "advancing" age, let's face it, I'm getting pretty close to 30! Or maybe it is that it does run in my family. My grandma Kerbo ( Leroy's mom) was a breast cancer survivor. I remember as a kid looking at the place where one of her breasts should have been, and wondering why it looked so scary. There were gouges in her chest where they removed it, and I was always fascinated by whatever it was that caused my grandma so much pain. I know that medicine wasn't as advanced as it is now, and I also know that there are ways to make it look like nothing ever happened to you. But I think it is important to remember that pain that so many women went through, not just physical, but emotional too.

This week, I watched Oprah, which in itself is rare, because I do NOT like Oprah (sorry, ladies, I know most of you love her!), but in watching her breast cancer awareness special episode, I learned a lot of things that I didn't know. Back when breast cancer was just becoming an issue, women weren't even allowed to say the word "breast". 70% of women with breast cancer do not have a history of breast cancer in their family. That means that many women will be surprised with the news that they have cancer, because like most women, you always think that cancer is something that happens to someone else. In reality, it is happening even to women in their early 30's. We've all read about the actress Christina Applegate who found out she had breast cancer at 36. This is so terrifying, and we all need to be responsible for our own health! You can get loads of information from www.komen.org.

And a final shout out to my friend Nat, who did the 'Race for the Cure', and bested last year's time by three minutes. Way to go girl!

-Tara