There it was–right smack on national television: broad-shouldered, masculine, professional football players wearing brilliant pink athletic shoes and pink matching sweat bands on their wrists.
As the game heated up, trainers with bright pink garters on their arms broke out hand
towels for the players, emblazoned with the same brilliant pink shade.
There probably wasn’t a single fan, in the stands or at home, that did not realize what caused this alarming break from traditional football colors: All over the United States, breast cancer awareness and its characteristic bright pink characteristic color has become as much of a fall tradition as football and orange pumpkins.
Here in Florida, at Orlando Cosmetic Surgery, we are well acquainted with the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual connection between humans and the feminine breast. In fact we have recently blogged articles on breast enhancement, breast lifts, and breast reductions.
Many of our patients have elected to have breast surgery for various reasons, but some have had a very sad reason and their surgery results from a life-saving need. The cause of their surgery is cancer, not enhancement or reduction, but basic reconstruction.
Our heart goes out to these patients all year-long, not just in October. However, in October, we send honors and recognition to breast cancer survivors and the families and friends who have supported them. Likewise, we pause a few moments to acknowledge those who have lost their brave fight against breast cancer.
You will, in the course of October, hear many of the same facts printed below more than once as the month continues, but will you listen to them or just hear them?
What Does Breast Cancer Awareness Mean To You?
For this October, let’s personalize the statistics! Let’s vow to think about the feeling beyond the facts:
Hear: Do you know that one in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime?
Think About: How many women are in your family?
How long will it be until this disease strikes a woman in your family or overtakes one of your close friends?
Be Aware: 220,000 women in the United States alone will be diagnosed with breast cancer during 2015?
Consider: That number is almost a quarter of a million women, and it would fill the foot ball stadium mentioned in the opening of this article many times over.
Be Attentive: Breast Cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in women? It is true that women have much to fear from lung cancer and melanoma, but when we look at statistics, breast cancer maintains the sad honor of first among women.
You are a rare person if this disease has not been diagnosed in anyone in your circle of acquaintances.
Of all the facts on all the posters, Orlando Cosmetic Surgery sees this one as the saddest: Breast Cancer is the second leading cause of women’s deaths in the U.S.
So that means that 40,000 women will actually die of this disease, this year.
Think Again: That number is 40,000. It is not 400 or 4000, but 40,000; If all of them were put into one place, you would have a small town!
Thus, we proudly wear our pink ribbons.
At Orlando Cosmetic Surgery, we feel those pink ribbons on our hearts every month, although we only wear them in October.
We wear them, wave them, and decorate with them to keep our attention on the statistics. We want to remain sensitive to the plight of Breast Cancer Survivors.
We also wear them in memory of those 40,000 who did not or will not survive to wear pink ribbons in October of 2016, next year.
Now, how many of your friends and relatives have you reminded to go get their 2015 mammograms?
