Try a little experiment next time you're out and about. Stop any woman on the street. It doesn't matter if the woman is of Asian, Indian, European or African descent, any random woman will do. Ask her if she knows someone who either has had or has survived breast cancer. Odds are she does. She may have had it herself. Or, it might be her mother, her sister, her best friend or even her daughter. Despite advances in early detection, prevention and cure, those two words still strike fear into the hearts of women all over the world.

October is Breast Cancer Awareness month. Offices and schools all over the U.S. will hold "Denim Day" on October 2. Runners in Houston will "race for the cure" in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure. Walkers in San Francisco and Atlanta will "walk for the cure" in two- or three-day walkathons. Talk show hosts will mention the significance of the month. Yogurt manufacturers will run campaigns to collect pink lids. Pen makers and cleaning supply manufacturers will donate part of the purchase price of select pink items to breast cancer research. During October, breast cancer will be front and center in our national awareness.

What are your feelings about dedicating an entire month to focus on this sometimes deadly disease, pass out small pink ribbons and raise awareness? Apathetic maybe? Totally involved? Jealous that a disease impacting your own life doesn't get equal treatment? Does it matter to you at all, and should it? That is something only you can answer.

Many younger women with no family history, myself included, remain distanced from it - until a mammogram comes back with abnormal findings or a friend is diagnosed. Then it hits home that you could be vulnerable to this disease also. Up until then there is a certain amount of denial. We may wear the ribbon or even donate to the cause, but our hearts aren't really in it. But when it hits home, it's a rare woman who ever looks at breast cancer half-heartedly again.

Don't wait until you or someone you know gets breast cancer to begin caring about its cure and prevention. Make this the October to help raise awareness. Learn something new about it. (Did you know that you don't need a lump to have breast cancer? It's true.) Wear a pink ribbon, save the yogurt tops, when you have a choice to purchase a product that has part of the price donated to breast cancer research, choose that product. Make a donation directly. Volunteer at a hospice. Drive a woman to her chemotherapy treatment. Participate in some way. Thousands of women, maybe someone you love, might benefit in the future from your act of caring right now.



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