This Was the Month of the Boob

I wrote the following in October 2007, during Breast Cancer Awareness Month:
I repost it, along with others I wrote that month, every year since.

Ladies, we guys think about boobs all year round, but this month was even more important. See, October is Breast Cancer Awareness month. Always remember to maintain your mammaries, and check them often, because early detection is vitally important to saving one's life, as well as saving the breasts themselves.



My mom died from stage four-breast cancer on October 19th, 2004, after a 2 year battle with it. She had a fierce cancer that spread quickly, but if she had caught it earlier, if she had discovered the lump before it spread through her lymph nodes to the rest of her body, she may well have beaten it. The first year of her war she was given strong doses of chemotherapy, coupled with a strong determination to beat it, and she impressed her doctors and family with how fast the fast moving cancer was shrinking back and getting smaller. But it returned in other areas, only to be beaten back again, and again, and again. I was so proud of my mother, having such a will to live, and a drive to overcome the weakness and pain she was always in. I told her at one point that she was to me, the strongest woman in the world, and that her life and trials were a display of strength and courage.


Unfortunately, the cancer came back the second year, and came back it did with a vengeance. On October 1st, 2004, I drove her to the ER for the last time. She was in end-stage renal failure, for unbeknownst to us, it had spread to her kidneys and shut them down. Her potassium levels had risen so high that she was delirious and hallucinating, and were high enough to kill her. They were able to bring the levels down to normal by the next day, but they couldn't maintain it and on October 2nd, a doctor brought me into a private room to give me that famous "there's nothing more we can do" speech. He told me that she would be dead within three to four days.
My mother did not die in 3-4 days from October 2nd. She died on October 19th. She was a fighter, and she just wasn't ready yet.


But you know, if she had caught it earlier, if she had discovered the lump in her breast sooner, she could have beaten it. She would have beaten it. She would have won, and she'd still be alive today. So please ladies, take it from a man who was still too young to lose a mother too young to die, check yourself often and take care of your breasts, and your health. You will be glad that you did, your family will be glad, your friends will be glad, and your boobies will be glad.

I am a crusader for the Boobs! =p