Bling My Bra for Breast Cancer

My daughters and I stayed up ‘till late last night making the little bees. Marissa (8) glued the eyes and Cristina (11) helped me build the little bees. We also added googgly eyes to the ghosts. My daughters understand how important it is to be aware of Breast Cancer.

Cancer is a big concern to us. My mother passed away August, 10th 1992 from breast cancer.  She was young, loving, and a very special woman. I lost her to breast cancer when I was very young.  I don’t want my daughters to go through what I went through.  I miss my mom with all my heart! I love you Mama!

The name of my bra is “Save The Boo Bees” – It’s Halloween! It’s Time to get scared!

We need to get scared and be aware of Breast Cancer.  This idea came to me from a common Halloween joke that we hear around this time of the year. “What did the Ghost say to the Bee? What?  Boo Bees!”

“I’m part of the eBay team. I’ve worked for eBay for 9 years now. I’m currently an account manager for the Motors department. Go Motors!!! We’ve been invited to participate in the Bling My Bra campaign, and I’ve decided to submit my work-of-art.  I’m excited to take John Donahoe’s challenge and participate this year.  “The eBay employee whose specially-decorated bra sells for the most money will win an iPad”.
I challenge everyone who’s ever bought or sold on eBay Motors to donate on my bras! Lovin’ Hooter and Save the Boo Bees!”

Susan G. Komen for the Cure® recommends that you:

1. Know your risk

Talk to your family to learn about your family health history
Talk to your health care provider about your personal risk of breast cancer
2. Get screened

Ask your health care provider which screening tests are right for you if you are at a higher risk
Have a mammogram every year starting at age 40 if you are at average risk
Have a clinical breast exam at least every three years starting at 20, and every year starting at 40
3. Know what is normal for you and see your health care provider right away if you notice any of these breast changes:

Lump, hard knot or thickening
Swelling, warmth, redness or darkening
Change in the size or shape of the breast
Dimpling or puckering of the skin
Itchy, scaly sore or rash on the nipple
Pulling in of your nipple or other parts of the breast
Nipple discharge that starts suddenly
New pain in one spot that doesn’t go away
4. Make healthy lifestyle choices

Maintain a healthy weight
Add exercise into your routine
Limit alcohol intake
Understanding Prevention of Breast Cancer

What is prevention?

Every day, we take steps to prevent unwanted events from happening. We wear seat belts to prevent injury. We brush our teeth to prevent cavities. While we would like to ensure some events never happen, often, the best we can do is reduce the chances of their happening.

We all know people who brush their teeth and still get cavities. And, we know people who always wear their seat belts who’ve still been hurt in a car crash. We do what we can to improve the chances of a good outcome, but we don’t always have complete control.

When talking about cancer and other chronic diseases, the same concept applies. Prevention mainly refers to lowering the risk of getting a disease rather than completely removing the risk. You may also hear the term risk reduction.

Risk factors and prevention

Cancer tends to be caused by a combination of factors. Some factors are usually under our control (like physical activity), some are out of our control (like age) and some are still unknown. Since many factors drive risk and we can change only a few of these, we cannot avoid some amount of risk.

For breast cancer, most risk factors that we have some control over have only a modest effect on risk. This means that there is no one magic bullet for preventing breast cancer, but it also means there’s no one factor that will cause it. Even a woman with a BRCA gene mutation doesn’t have a 100 percent chance of getting breast cancer. In fact, most people diagnosed with breast cancer are at average risk and we don’t know which factors came together to cause the cancer.

This doesn’t mean that prevention is an illusion. The disease process is just so complex that it’s hard to pin down how a certain set of risk factors will affect a person. However, when we look at groups of people it becomes clearer. For example, if we find that there is a 20 percent decrease in risk of breast cancer in one group of people, we can predict that there will be a 20 percent decrease in risk in a similar group of people. What we don’t know is which people in the group will get the prevention benefit.

Who benefits from prevention?

It is hard to know who benefits from prevention. We know some behaviors can lower the risk of cancer. For example, non-smokers are much less likely to develop lung cancer compared to smokers. However, we do not know who prevents lung cancer by not smoking and who would have remained cancer-free even if they had smoked. So while we know that not smoking lowers the chance that a person will develop lung cancer, we do not know how great this benefit is for any one person. Further, most smokers will never be diagnosed with lung cancer and some non-smokers will. Taking steps to prevent cancer does not ensure that a person never develops the disease.

The good news is that most behaviors that are usually under our control and reduce the risk of breast cancer are part of a healthy lifestyle. Making healthy choices can have rewards beyond breast cancer prevention. Choosing a healthy lifestyle can lower the risk of other types of cancer