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Think pink

Second entry of the day...

Today while watching The View I heard a statistic from Rosie O'Donnell that I am sure I must have misheard or she misquoted because otherwise we live in a screwed up world.

This month is Breast Cancer Awareness month and because of such The View is saluting cancer warriors. Today Rosie was talking to a breast cancer survivor who is now in, I believe, her second fight with the disease. She was diagnosed young, like 30-ish and had no family history of breast cancer.

Rosie said, "95% of all women diagnosed with breast cancer have NO family history of the disease."

Go back and read that line again, please.

95%....NO FAMILY HISTORY!!

Have we women not been told for years now to know our family history, if we had such history - get checked?

Leading some women to believe, wrongly of course, that if you have no family history you were somehow safer.

I mean, I know that it should be every woman's responsibility to be on top of their health care, both current and preventative. And I know that you should never take for granted that you are totally out of a risk group. And I am a reasonably intelligent, well-read woman but even I figured that if you had no family history you had dodged, if not a bullet, then at least some of the buckshot for this particular disease.

And now I hear that 95% of women diagnosed with breast cancer have no family history of the disease.

hunh.

Why is it that we can put men, women and equipment up in space to do I don't know what...we can put men, women and equipment in the middle of a desert to do I don't know what but we can't put men/women/equipment and dollars into a cure for a disease that has touched almost everyone on this planet in one way or another?

That's it. That's my rant for today and I'm done.

Except for this - do a self breast exam today...get a mammogram if your covered for it. I know many women don't get them because it hurts or it's embarrassing but if it were for your daughter, mother, sister, friend you would tell them to just go get it done.

So do it...for your mother, sister, daughter, friend. So you'll be there for them when they need the push.

And while your at it buy one of the ten million pink breast cancer things that are floating around out there...it couldn't hurt and it might just help.

7:18 p.m. - 2006-10-18

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