CHARLOTTE — October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and according to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, every 14 seconds, a woman worldwide will be diagnosed with the deadly disease.
But men are also being diagnosed with breast cancer, with nearly 3,000 in the United States this year alone.
Channel 9′s Damany Lewis spoke with one survivor whose mission is to erase the stigma surrounding breast cancer in men.
Sixty-one-year-old Raymond Valentine is a man with many titles: father, husband, and now a breast cancer survivor.
“I had been working in the yard one weekend, and then later that week I was working out. And I felt this bump or lump on my chest. This odd feeling,” Valentine said.
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Valentine said he thought it was a tick and didn’t have it looked at until his annual physical.
Without hesitation, his doctor ordered a mammogram and ultrasound. The tests confirmed a 9-mm lump the size of a pencil eraser on the right side of his chest was in fact stage 1 breast cancer.
“I called my wife and told her, and I was like, ‘Hey, I can’t believe I am saying this, but I have breast cancer,’” Valentine explained.
Novant Health Oncologist Doctor Dipika Misra said 1% of men in the United States will be diagnosed with breast cancer.
“Cancer picks people; it doesn’t care what the gender is; it doesn’t care what the race is; it chooses you, and your job is early detection and your reaction to early detection with the medical team,” Misra explained. “That is probably the most important part of this; that’s one of the big challenges in male breast cancer. Often times we diagnose it in later stages because men don’t think they can get breast cancer, and oftentimes they do recognize the symptoms and perhaps ignore the findings.”
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Valentine said he opted to have a mastectomy, a decision he said he didn’t think about.
“I was declared cancer-free this past June, and here we are talking,” Valentine elaborated.
Now Valentine is working with the American Cancer Society and other organizations to support all breast cancer survivors, as well as talking to others about his battle.
He said he wants men to talk to their doctor immediately and without shame if they notice something unusual.
“We are all humans; we are people and our bodies. As we age, the older we get, the better chance something is going to happen,” Valentine continued. “Part of my mission today is like you have to do self-examination. Cancer is kryptonite early detection and only found through self-examination.”
VIDEO: NC women file complaints against Atrium for breast cancer misdiagnoses
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