Breast Cancer Awareness Month
October is Breast Cancer Awareness month.
Cancer is defined as a malignant and invasive growth or tumor and any disease characterized by such growths. Each year in the United States more than 200,000 women get breast cancer and more than 40,000 aren’t successful in fighting the disease. It generally occurs in women who are over fifty, but it can also affect younger women. Breast cancer can also occur in men, although it is not common. Less than one percent of breast cancer cases are in men.
Those fighting breast cancer often have to have surgeries, chemotherapy, and other methods of treatment to get rid of the cancerous cells and tumors.
Along with a diagnosis comes plenty of stress. It’s not easy for anyone: the family and friends, and certainly not the one receiving the diagnosis. If you have a loved one fighting breast cancer, be there for them, and let them know God is there for them.
My mom wrote in a Facebook post:
“On the surface, these words imply Strength. ‘I know you can get through this, because God never gives us more than we can handle’. Or, ‘You’re strong – you will get through this’. In reality, I feel anything but strong. Left to my own ‘strength’, I’d be finished…the emotional equivalent of lying in the corner in the fetal position. I cannot handle a cancer diagnosis, the unknowns of a prognosis, of surgery, of chemotherapy and all the potentially wicked side effects. I cannot handle seeing my family worry and struggle over these unknowns. So I am not handling it – I’m giving it over to someone who can. The more accurate way to phrase this: God won’t give us more than HE can handle. My constant prayer continues to be for strength to handle whatever is God's will...So in letting God handle everything, I am made stronger. Funny how that all works out!”