AHHH, FALL

If my last post didn't give it away, October is my favorite month. Hands down, without a doubt. The whole month is just cozy. It's cool, but it's not cold. The leaves are the most gorgeous color, scarves become necessary, warm sweaters are acceptable, there's football to look forward to on Sundays, holding on to a cup of hot coffee warms up your hands (I hope you aren't shocked that I threw a coffee reference in there), and pumpkin everything is back. What's not to love?

Another thing that makes October my favorite is that it's breast cancer awareness month. This didn't used to mean a whole lot more to me than pink was all over the place. But after my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2010, it suddenly meant a whole lot more than that. She had a lumpectomy and underwent chemotherapy, but it was caught early enough. But this month always reminds me that it could have ended much differently. When she went in for her annual mammogram, her nurse thought maybe she felt something. The doctor was very confident that it wasn't anything, but the nurse was persistent that my mom have an MRI. An MRI is a pretty extensive precaution for a "maybe it's there, maybe it's not" lump. But the MRI showed that it was there. If it had been ignored, who knows how things could have been different.

Unfortunately, my story of my mom being diagnosed with breast cancer before the age of 50 with two kids under the age of 18 is not uncommon. 1 in 8 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer at some point in their life. The American Cancer society estimates that that 232,240 new cases of invasive breast cancer will be diagnosed in women by the end of 2013. Of those cases, 39,620 women will die. Crazy, isn't it? I feel like it's about time we find a cure for this damn thing. And by we, I am not including myself. God knows science and I are mortal enemies, so I will not be any help. But I'm really just hoping that we are getting closer and closer to finding a way to stop this disease. She's a real bitch.