PORT EDWARDS, WI (WSAU-WAOW) — October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, but this week is dedicated to raising awareness to men who can also get the disease.
Joe Clark, a retired art teacher from Port Edwards, has beaten the disease. Clark spoke with WAOW Newsline 9 and knows first hand that you don’t have to be a woman to be worried about potential signs.
“It’s opened my eyes [and] it’s opened a lot of my friend’s eyes to the fact that this disease crosses that gender gap,” Clark said. “It’s important for people not to put aside a concern of a small bump or, as I had, some blood, and not see their doc thinking, ‘Well, this can’t happen to me, because I’m a man.’”
Clark’s sister had battled breast cancer, but died from the disease in her early 30’s. This gave Joe a bit of warning of what he could be facing.
“I don’t know that I ever really thought of it as something I could get,” he said. “But when it happened, it wasn’t a big surprise to me.”
Breast cancer can affect 1-in-1000 men, according to the American Cancer Society. Governor Scott Walker is one of 40 governors through the country to focus a week in October on the male side of the struggle with this type of the disease.
Interview by Daniel Keith, WAOW Newsline 9.