October is here, and everyone is excited for Halloween, having a four-day weekend, and enjoying our rocket football games. But I think there is something more important; breast cancer awareness.  

Pink Out is the most important time of the year. Breast cancer has always been a diagnosis that has affected the majority of woman in the world. It is really devastating when you hear that someone has been affected by this disease. Deep down, everyone knows someone who they loved has or had cancer.  

My personal connection to this is through my family. I have two people that had breast cancer, one that lost the fight, and one that overcame breast cancer. The first person I will talk about is my grandma Magdalena. 

 Talking about my Grandmother it with my mom, Roxxane Hernandez, gives me a comforting feeling since that is my mom’s and my aunt’s, Veronica  points of view of their mother.

 I asked when was it like when grandma found out when she had breast cancer?

It was around 1996 when Magdalena got breast cancer; she said she had a rash that didn’t go away and started to spread to her left breast. She decided to go to the hospital and get tested and found out there she had inflammatory breast cancer. As Magdalena’s cancer worsened, she had to take chemotherapy. My whole family thought that my grandmother would be healthier due to the extensive treatments she was given. A year later she couldn’t hold on anymore; she had fought well over a year but she couldn’t overcome breast cancer. Her death was one of the hardest goodbyes my family has faced. 

“We shouldn’t be sad about death and what it brought but celebrate pink out and people who are going through the fight or who has lost in the fight”- Veronica 

Sara is my dad’s aunt, but I consider her my aunt due to the majority of the time we spend together. Sadly, she got breast stage 4 cancer, which tragically led to her loss of hair. I was a little girl; I didn’t know what was going on. My family told me she was sick and when you think of sick as a child, it’s “oh she has a cold and will get better.”

I couldn’t comprehend how severe her condition actually was. After doing treatments, Sara became better, it was such a relief off our shoulders, now Sara has all her hair, pride, and is living life to her fullest.  

So why do we celebrate pink out?  

We bring awareness to breast cancer, to show that we’re here to support the victims through the challenging moments.

Coach Guyer sells breast cancer awareness shirts to show that he wants his students and everyone to represent all the battles that woman had won and lost. He also supports both of his sisters that were diagnosed with breast cancer, which tragically ended one of his sister’s lives. 

“Well cross country starts for us, and both of my sisters had got it, but one of them was a survivor and the other lost the battle to it, so I wear it for that reason.”- Coach Guyer  

BPA has been working hard selling out their pink-out shirts to spread the word about breast cancer awareness. The money they raise through these sales helps them fund their BPA organisation while helping with the cause. 

“We do it to raise money for BPA so we can go to more places and do more fun things out there when we do competition, and showing support for people going through that fight, and fighting alongside with them.”- Mr. Martinez  

With all this, I want to make a heartfelt story about why Pink Out is so important to people around the world and your community, to the people who are fighting or have strongly fought the battle.  I say, “wear your pink to show pride and support in the fight!”