With October approaching, breast cancer rises to the surface for many. Most people have at least one family member or friend, or even themselves that have been affected. For me, it's my mother. She died from breast cancer when I was 17, one month after I graduated from high school. She had been suffering from the side effects since about two years prior, after being misdiagnosed. She reported feeling a lump in her breast to our family physician who dismissed it as nothing.

This was many years ago in the 1980's, but surely there had to be more testing methods available than one individual's opinion. That misdiagnoses turned into a radical mastectomy, then metastasis, then the loss of life. She was 42. Christine Pitt, my mother, was gone. August 1984.

Just like that, no more Mother Days, Thanksgivings, Christmas's, and birthdays together. No future grandchildren and great grandchildren. No motherly advise. But most of all, I lost and my best friend and the person that understood me the most. I was angry, now I’m getting even.

Too many people are still being negatively by this disease. Breast cancer is expected to affect 290,560 (2,710 men and 287,850 women) with 43,780 deaths in total (530 men and 42,350 women) American Cancer Society, Facts and Figures 2022.

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