A dis­ease as for­mi­da­ble as breast can­cer deserves more than just a month of aware­ness, but the sup­port for research and treat­ment and for those bat­tling the dis­ease takes cen­ter stage. As the leaves turn from green to red, yel­low and brown, the rest of the coun­try goes pink.

It would be hard not to find some­one touched by breast can­cer. Mothers and daugh­ters, sis­ters and friends are united and strength­ened through each other’s sup­port and reminded to make reg­u­lar self-examinations and annual mammograms.

Over four decades ago, my Great Aunt Marge Denison was diag­nosed with breast can­cer. At the time a University of Michigan grad­u­ate stu­dent, teacher in Big Rapids school sys­tem and sin­gle mother to five young chil­dren, Marge’s options were not plen­ti­ful. Through swift treat­ment and the sup­port of the Big Rapids com­mu­nity, fam­ily and friends have seen Marge to 46 years of remission.

There are lit­er­ally hun­dreds of thou­sands of sto­ries like Marge’s. Stories of strength and per­se­ver­ance con­nected by an oath to con­tinue the fight against breast can­cer made by those directly and indi­rectly impacted by the disease.

October is a time to focus those ener­gies; to stand together and remind those who are fight­ing and those who have fought that we wear those pink rib­bons as a sym­bol of strength and unity.

The efforts made have had a dras­tic impact on the detec­tion and sur­vival rates. In many cases, a sur­vival rate of 88 per­cent with early detec­tion and treat­ment is expected, accord­ing to the American Cancer Society.

October is national breast can­cer aware­ness month. The effort we make today will save lives tomorrow.

Keep fight­ing.

For more infor­ma­tion about breast or other can­cers, visit can​cer​.org.

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