Local woman wants more awareness on male breast cancer

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

The pink is out and attention is on a disease that will affect another 170,000 women this year.

But Pat Washburn of Omaha has a message for you.

“Breast cancer does not discriminate,” Pat said.  “It happens to men too.”

Pat’s husband, Marlyn, was diagnosed with Stage 4 breast cancer last year.

She said by the time they detected it, it had metastasized to his liver, lungs, bones and his brain.

“The wind was knocked out of me,” Pat said.  “It’s like we have to go into recovery mode here and we have to pull him through this.  I never thought that I was actually going to lose him.”

Marlyn died five months later.  Pat said ever since then, she’s become a member of the Male Breast Cancer Awareness Coalition and has been on a mission to inform people that men are at risk too.

She admitted women get it more than men, but said that the mortality rate in men is high because so many of them don’t know they can get it.  She said she’d like to see that change.

“Unless you as a man specifically say ‘you know, I’ve got a lump.  I want you to check it out,’ the majority of the time, the doctors are not just going to check out the breast area and feel for lumps.”

She said men have to look out for themselves and make sure they get checked before it’s too late.

Pat said they got Gov. Ricketts to sign a proclamation recognizing this week as Male Breast Cancer Awareness Week.

She recommended you visit the Male Breast Cancer Coalition website for stories, signs and symptoms of breast cancer: https://malebreastcancercoalition.org/