As everyone knows, October is breast cancer awareness month. As a girl who is a part of a family in which breast cancer is common, I’m here to educate you about it and its treatments.
Breast cancer is caused by breast cells mutating and growing, all the while becoming cancerous. Breast cancer is most common in women, but it doesn’t exclude men from the equation. About 240,000 women are diagnosed each year and about 2100 men are diagnosed. As you can see, the amount of women compared to vs. men is significantly higher, but men getting breast cancer is still as severe.
Breast cancer can affect a person in many ways, at many different ages, and at any level of severitysevereness. The physical effects that breast cancer has on the body are severe to say the least. But the majority of the effects that it has on your body areis caused by the treatments and not the disease. Early detection of breast cancer can be very beneficial for the person the cancer is affecting. However,But not all victims of breast cancer get that lucky.
Many people in which breast cancer effects, chose treatment routes to try and cure the cancer. Those treatments consist of chemotherapy, radiation, surgery, etc.
Chemotherapy- Chemotherapy or “Chemo” is the use of drugs to destroy quickly multiplying or fast growing cells in your body. It is a systemic medication. This means that the medication travels through one’s bloodstream and reaches through ALL parts of the body. Because of all of the traveling thistraveling that this medication does, it may cause harm to healthy cells. With all the drawbacks listed and not listed, this treatment is proven to be one of the most effective for killing cancer cells.
Radiation- Radiation is the cancer treatment in which a machine uses beams of intense energy to kill cancerous cells and shrink tumors caused by cell multiplication. This treatment kills cells by damaging the cells DNA. This treatment does not kill the cells right away and often needs weeks or months to truly affect the cells. The cancer cells often continue to die for weeks and weeks after treatment is over for the patient.
Surgery- The surgery to remove any type of cancer is typically a removal of the tumor that was created by cell multiplication and mutation. Breast cancer is slightly different. The main area where tumors end up or on or near the breast. The proper term for the surgery in which doctors remove the breast(s) completely is called a mastectomy. Not only can doctors remove the breast(s) to treat this, but, sometimes other tissues near the breast, such as lymph nodes, are also removed because of tumors.
There are many more treatments out there that help reduce the multiplication of cancerous cells and help treat the disease. The few listed are the most common. Although this disease is one that changes lives, and families, and seems like it’s so powerful that it can’t be overcome, it can. Never let it take anything away from you. My grandma had breast cancer when I was young. I watched her have highs and lows. I watched her on her good days and her bad. She never let cancer stop her from doing what she loved and overcoming what she wanted to. She never let the treatment break her down. Now to this day she continues to do what she loves. She still goes to church every Sunday and Wednesday. She still does hair. She still goes shopping every Wwednesday. And she still spends many hours a week with her family who was with her every step of the way. She is one of the many strong women I look up to because of what she has overcome.
If you know someone who has undergone this disease and its treatments, give them a hug. They have been through the toughest of times overcoming what they did. They are stronger than any of us could ever imagine. I will forever have an infinite amount of respect for these individuals.
