Breast Cancer Awareness

According to the National Cancer Society, Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results show that when my grandmother was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1998, the percentage of women diagnosed was around 87 per cent and the death rate was around 83 per cent. About nine years later (and a year before my grandmother's battle ended in death), the percentage of documented women dropped to around 53 per cent and the death rate increased to around 89 per cent.

I was six years old when my grandma was diagnosed with breast cancer. I don't recall knowing about it until years later when it relapsed and my parents and grandparents found out that her stage of breast cancer was misdiagnosed. By then it was too late, I guess, to eliminate the cancer completely since it had spread.

When I reached my teen years, the appointments for treatments became more frequent. I didn't think about them much at first, but I soon got a true understanding of what was going on when I was entering my Sophomore Year in high school. It was the summer of 2007 and I couldn't visit my grandparents for two weeks as I had in the past. Grandma's cancer was practically debilitating her so that she couldn't do the things we used to do together.

A year later on August 28, 2008 Grandma's battle with cancer ended after nearly 17 days on hospice care. In the two years since then, I have done research on breast cancer. I found that breast cancer can be passed on generation to generation. This means that both me and my mom could be at risk for being diagnosed at ages than my grandma.

My advice to women: if you have a relative who's been diagnosed with breast cancer, check with your doctor to find information on this type of cancer. You can also find information on breast cancer at Susan G. Komen for the Cure.