Breast cancer is not only a threat to women – News

MADISON TWP. – An axle sits on the ground near the garage door of Larry Mekic, stained with mud and greased with grease near the rotors.

Aged 69, he struggles to cast the role in the modified track car modified by his grandson.

It saved his life from an illness he did not think he had contracted.

The part-time school bus driver from Lackawanna County Head Start and the retired maintenance electrician was using a carburetor cleaner to itemize the room last year, but the sprayer nozzle was at the same time. In back and he sprayed his chest with powerful solvent.

He pulled off his shirt that was starting to burn his skin. When he wiped the stain with a paper towel, he felt the lump.

His discovery in April resulted in a two-week whirlwind including a hastily scheduled mammogram and biopsy that reached a head when his radiologist called out.

Mekic, with his thick, warm hands and his sense of disgusting humor, is over 6 feet tall. He has stage 3 breast cancer on the left and a pea-sized tumor on the right.

"I came across," he says recalling the phone call. "I will tell you that I have been devastated."

Of all cases of breast cancer, men account for about 1%.

Men have a one in 800 chance of developing the disease, while women have a one in eight chance, said Dr. Erin Miller, a Mekic surgeon at the Geisinger Community Medical Center in Scranton.

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. The American Cancer Society estimates that about 2,550 new cases of invasive breast cancer in men will be diagnosed this year and 480 men will die from it.

"I think men often have a hard time making the diagnosis – worse than women," said Miller. "Because it's less common, because people hear breast cancer and immediately assume women, they somehow forget that it can happen to men."

Because fewer men understand it, those who have trouble finding other people with whom to identify, she said.

The Mekic case was easier than many others for several reasons. He caught her in time, he resolved to beat him and his family backed him up.

"He was a soldier," said his surgeon, Miller. "He had a good attitude, which is a huge part of the battle, and a huge family support system."

On May 4, Miller removed both breasts. The operation lasted six hours.

He thought that would be the hard part, but then the chemotherapy arrived.

"The pain is above the matter. If you do not mind, it does not matter, "he said, standing in the garage he had built with his sons on a dead end street in Madison. "I can live with pain. My mind will beat the pain, but the disease of chemo can not escape. "

He finished chemotherapy in August. To be considered cancer free, it does not need recurrence before five years. At the last check, he had no cancer in his body.

The racing season is over for the Mekic family and it's time to start getting ready for next year.

On Monday afternoon, a long tubular metal race car chassis rests on a hydraulic lift, almost completely disassembled. He will send it in a few weeks for an X-ray inspection, which will detect cracks and / or weak spots. The 700 horsepower car engine is based on a cart and is waiting to be shipped for rebuilding.

Put back in place, the car weighs 2,450 pounds and reaches a speed of 120 mph.

When he got sick, he told his family to start the season without him, but they stayed.

"They missed the first five races," he said. His eyes blushed and filled with tears as he remembered.

He did not want to hold them back from the sport they all shared, but that meant everything they expected of him.

He is still talking about his 18-week fight against incredulous cancer, surprised that this has never happened.

"If you had talked about colon cancer or something like that, well, guys understand that," he said. "The problem is that there are a lot of guys who do not know they have to check, and that's the part that bothers me the most."

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Warning signs of breast cancer in humans

Men whose first-degree relatives, such as mothers or sisters, have had breast cancer are at a higher risk of contracting it.

Here are some of the warning signs:

• Usually appears in the form of painless lumps.

• Dimples or gathers.

• Inverted nipple.

• Nipple discharge.