October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Yesterday, Christina Applegate ( a recent breast cancer survivor) was on the Oprah show. Here in Chicago, Oprah is on at weird times so when I was getting ready to go to bed last night, I saw that it was on from a 11-12 (which is way past my bedtime). For some reason, I had to stay up and see what she had to say, knowing very well that I was going to be exhausted today. It turned out that the whole show was about Breast Cancer awareness so I found it really interesting and informational. I'm glad that I stayed up. First Christina came on to tell her story of how she became aware that she had breast cancer. I was really interested to hear what she had to say. I just think that she is an inspiration to everyone the way she went so public with her double masectomy. Since Christina's mother had breast cancer, she has been having routine mammograms since she was 30. During a routine mammogram, they saw something but didn't know what b/c she had dence breasts, which basically means that the mammogram comes back blurry and so her doctor suggested that she get an MRI to get a better picture. For Christina Applegate, this is fine, no questions asked because she's got tons of money to pay for it, however, most insurance companies won't cover the MRI for this reason. What's scary to me is that she would have never known that she had masses unless she had a MRI. That's so crazy to me. This seems to happen all too often and woman find out too late that they have this deadly disease. Well, throughout the show they had many woman who either had breast cancer or were a survivor telling there story. Actually the majority of the audience were breast cancer survivors. That was pretty cool to see. Another aspect of the show that really touched me was that the sister of Susan G Koman, and founder of the foundation that we are walking for in November was on the show. Her sister was diagnosed with breast cancer in the early 70's when there wasn't anything they could do and she really couldn't even talk about it b/c people just didn't say the word breast back then. Susan was only in her early 30's when she was diagnosed. It was Susan's dying wish to have her sister make sure that this never happen to anyone else and so that's what started the Susan G Koman Foundation, which has raised over a billion dollars for breast cancer research. If there is anything that I learned from last night's show is this, make sure you give yourself self examinations and also be persistent with doctors if you are worried about something that's doesn't feel right. You know your body better than anyone. Last night's show really got me excited to walk in November. This is the very reason that I walk 60 miles in 3 days and hope that there will be a day where there is a cure for breast cancer. The show motivated me to raise as much money for breast cancer as I possibly can b/c no woman, man or familyshould have to go through what these people go through. So PLEASE donate now to a great cause!