By:
By: Steve Del Gardo
Director/Founder of Protect The Pecs
It has been a few months since I written a blog for BullshitCancer because I started a new business venture called Del Gardo’s Taste A New Tradition. It is a cannoli business offering up to 40 different flavors. My time has been consumed in making and creating cannoli everyday for which I AM LOVING IT!
One of the other reasons that I have not written in awhile is the fact that things have been bothering me about what I am seeing in the world of the breast cancer community. Every year since being diagnosed, I thought the World would start including more men in programs and other social events. It has been awakening for me. Yes, I do see some more education in the medical field and some foundations are now coming forward in stating that men get breast cancer, too. But it isn’t enough. We are still discriminated against and we are not always included in programs and/or festivities. I just shake my head wondering why no one wants to say that men can get breast cancer in a public forum. I was at a Pink Ribbon Luncheon this month with over 1600 people in attendance and the Doctor that spoke kept talking about breast cancer in women….not a word about men or statistics….NOTHING!
Then I see promotions online from prominent breast cancer supporters talking about free wigs to free tattoos to pink firetrucks to NFL survivor programs for women only. Not a word about men!
It hurts too much! It was making me bitter inside and I had to really think on how to move forward. So, that is what I am learning to do. Move Forward and leave the past behind. I can’t control everything I see but I can try to educate the best I can through my business. I have been featured on WCPO about my cannoli business and my breast cancer/foundation. So at least, I am doing some advocacy.
I must leave all that anger at the door, it started to consume me. I have a new lease on life and I am using it to live my dream. Each of us has a dream! Go chase it! Achieve it!
I had a person ask me the other day if I was worried that my cancer will come back. I told her, not really, I am more worried about getting hit by a car crossing the street near my business because there is always an idiot going the wrong way on a one-way street.
My cancer seems like a blur now. I don’t feel like I ever had it until I take a shower the next day then I look in the mirror and say to myself “Shit, I have no nipples!”