But I know one thing: Too many women die of breast cancer every year.

Now we have to hear so-called health experts tell women to wait until age 50 to get potentially life-saving mammograms? Those same experts are saying that self-examinations may be worthless.

The Boston Herald’s Margery Eagan got it best.

Statistically, it’s true that breast cancer rates skyrocket after age 50, but you don’t need to click this link to know that women under 50 get breast cancer. A 10-year-old girl got breast cancer this year in the US.

While we’re on the topic of numbers, we also know that children are going through puberty faster and faster over recent generations.

I understand that people are worried about false-positives among mammograms. It’s scary. It’s a science that we should be working to perfect, especially with today’s computer technology. But do you know what’s scarier? A dead mom. A dead wife.

Men will never have to experience a mammogram. We hear it’s unpleasant. We hear it can be painful. I understand it’s equal to 1,000 x-rays. I’m not saying every woman should be forced to undergo a test they don’t want, but if you’re a 35-year-old woman, and your mom died of breast cancer, you should be able to get any test you want, whenever you want, to ensure you don’t have to die, too.

It’s outrageous, and you shouldn’t be surprised when men are getting recommendations not to get their own “manly” cancer screenings before a certain age either.

Well, they came for the woman, and I’m not going to wait to let them come for me. Defaultly waiting until age 50 for a mammogram is awful advice that appears to be solely driven by money.

Tumor growth is actually relatively common; however, most tumors are benign, and do not invasively grow further outward or take up residence in other locations. That process, known as metastasis, is the true killer in cancer, as the body becomes unable to fight off the multiple new tumors that begin to disrupt normal body function.

The ACS is now telling patients that we may be over-treating the less-threatening tumors, and in the process missing more-threatening cases.  Since advocating screening, the ACS acknowledges that cancer diagnoses have increased. However, for frequent screenings to actually prove beneficial to the public health, there should have been a corresponding decrease in cancer deaths. Instead, widespread screening has only led to an increase in the discovery and treatment of tumors that would have remained harmless and wouldn’t have required any intervention.

While screening has resulted in fewer late-stage cancer cases for colon and cervical cancers, unfortunately there’s no data to show that we’ve seen fewer deaths in breast and prostate cancers, and doctors are now worried that the public has been over-promised on the benefits of some cancer screens.

However, Colin Begg, a biostatistician at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York told The Times that he’s worried that the message will confuse the public who will assume that all cancer screenings are unnecessary. “I am concerned that the complex view of a changing landscape will be distilled by the public into yet another ‘screening does not work’ headline. The fact that population screening is no panacea does not mean that it is useless,” he said.

For now, it will just take time for doctors and researchers to determine which tumors should be treated, and which, counter intuitively should be left alone. In the mean time, follow the advice of your doctor, whatever that might be.

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Instructors are donating their time to hold a 3 hour spinathon and a 2 hour zumbathon, with a suggested donation of $5 per hour per participant for charity.

Zumba is a high energy, latin dance class that can easily be adapted for people with a limited range of motion, and spinning burns the most calories of all our group fitness classes, at an average of 500 calories per class.

Commonwealth Sports Club is also holding a raffle to help raise money for the cause. The staff at CSC and Joint Ventures Physical Therapy have donated their time to offer raffle prizes such as an acupuncture session, personal training packages, pilates packages, and massages. Other prizes include CSC gear, $25 Visa Gift Cards, and a $100 gift certificate to The Kells Bar and Grill, Blast’s perennial party spot, donated by restaurant owner and sports club member Jerry Quinn.

There will also be inspirational artwork sold with part of the proceeds going to breast cancer research.

Be there from 6-9 p.m. tonight, and make your workout for a good cause.

BlastMagazine.com is proud to be sponsoring the Faulkner-Sagoff RUNWAY Gala on October 22 at the InterCOntinental Hotel here in Boston.

The RUNWAY Gala is a night of fashion and fundraising for one of the best causes of all — breast cancer care. So cue the music, lower the house lights, and join Blast as we are very proud to cover and be a part of a night of fashion supporting the Faulkner Hospital Faulker-Sagoff Centre.

Presented by Suffolk Healthcare, this exciting event will preview the works of Boston’s hottest up and coming young designers from the School of Fashion Design. Guests will vote for their favorite alongside celebrity judges, including TLC’s “A Makeover Story” coach Gretchen Monahan, “Project Runway” alums Emmett McCarthy and Kevin Christiana, jewelry designer Tonya Chen Mezrich and Boldfacers.com founder Lisa Pierpont.

The evening will honor Men with Heart, a group of men committed to fighting breast cancer. They are husbands, sons, fathers and brothers of women touched by breast cancer.

The Faulkner-Sagoff Breast Imaging and Diagnostic Centre provides a patient-centered approach to breast cancer detection and prevention, making it one of the leading centers for breast health care in New England and in the country. In the decades since its establishment in 1971, the Centre has cared for well over 100,000 women.

For even more information on the event, visit Faulkner Hospital’s website.

“There was not this big pink [breast cancer support] craze that there is now,” she says. “It was kind of a new concept, making jewelry that was affiliated with cause marketing.”

Langdon-Gerber reconnected with her son’s former sixth grade music teacher, who had breast cancer, in the mall where her store was located. Moved when she heard about her friend’s diagnosis, Landgon-Gerber began to contact charity organizations to see if she could donate some of the proceeds from a specialized jewelry line to their causes.

“Believe it or not, we actually had people turn us down,” she laughs. But once production got underway, it took off, and even her son’s former teacher got in on the action. “She came in during chemo and radiation so that she had somewhere to go that was a support group, and she helped to make the bracelets,” says Landgon-Gerber.

Soon, the word spread and more organizations contacted Elisa Ilana to have designs made for their causes. One of the requests gave birth to the Liz’s Legacy collection, which honors the memory of Liz Karnes, who was married to former Nebraska Senator David Karnes. She lost her battle with ovarian cancer in 2003, and Langdon-Gerber hopes Elisa Ilana’s line dedicated to Karnes would raise national awareness about her life and legacy.

“When they approached me with this, we kind of had a national presence,” she says. “So I was hoping to lend … their foundation a boost.”

Landgon-Gerber and her small design staff have hand picked every charity their designs benefit, from AIDS to diabetes to soldiers’ families.

“We chose the things that we actually were passionate about,” she says.

All these years later, with a second store opening and a thriving online presence, Elisa Ilana is still a pioneer in the business, and they are dedicated to donating 10 percent of their proceeds to the specified cause.

“The jewelry isn’t significantly different today from when I originally designed it because I like the design,” says Langdon-Gerber.

Elisa Ilana’s designs feature handmade sterling silver, 14 carat gold, freshwater pearls, and Swarovski crystals. The awareness line’s most popular piece, the pink Spectacular bracelet, is inspired by the trademark color scheme for breast cancer.

“The different piece parts that are in my jewelry all have significance,” Landgon-Gerber says. Take, for example, Elisa Ilana’s signature piece, rings that move over the beads. The movement that the design lends to the jewelry represents that “the move toward a cure never sleeps,” she says.

And the awareness brand grows with a limited edition piece every few years. The designs are sometimes purposefully designed to mark a milestone, like a 10-year cancer survivor.

“The last one we did was made from genuine 14 millimeter pink tourmalines, and they were in a variety of shades and colors and so forth,” says Landon-Gerber. “Within the next couple of years we’ll have another limited edition.”

Don’t look for an East Coast retail location anytime soon, though. Elisa Ilana is considering a Las Vegas installment in the future, but in the meantime, the company continues using its online store as the main sales outlet. Check out www.elisailana.com for more information.

Asha Mevlana, a soft-spoken violinist with a hint of rock n’ roll swagger, is living out her dream as a professional musician., but the decision to pursue a career in music came after passing a significant juncture in life.

In 2000, her friends gathered with food and wine and held a party that was meant to ease the awkwardness of the effects of chemotherapy. It was a hair cutting party. One by one, her friends cut off a piece of her hair until she was left nearly bald.

“I decided that the easiest way to accomplish this was to involve my friends in the process,” Mevlana wrote on her website.

At 24, Mevlana had breast cancer. While most of her peers were securing their futures, she was forced to confront the thought of dying and not having one.

In an instant, her aspirations of having a career in public relations were overshadowed. The feeling of invincibility vanished within minutes of hearing the upsetting diagnosis.

“It was as if I was in a daze,” she said.

The painful months of treatment began with a lumpectomy. She just didn’t fit the stereotype of most breast cancer patients. Even before reaching the major milestones in life, life-altering decisions had to be made. Choosing between different forms of medications and treatment centers was overwhelming. The varying opinions from doctors were not reassuring. Rather, the situation was made even more complicated.

The first treatment was particularly scary.

“As they prepared to inject me with the red AC, I became very scared and began shaking. Why was I letting someone inject poison into my body?” she wrote. “The nurse told me to think of it as an army of red soldiers going in to kill all the bad cells. Psychologically, this made it much easier to deal with.”

Mevlana turned to the Young Survivor’s Coalition (YSC) to find a group of women her age, going through the same ordeal. She explained they helped her find a “chemo buddy.” Along with friends and family, the YSC was another strong support system.

The four rounds of chemotherapy, followed by radiation, was an exhausting period of time, but the cancer cleared from her system. Gradually, the physical distress faded away, but the mental torment persisted. The fear of recurrence and consuming thought of cancer was difficult to handle.

Nonetheless, over time, this too subsided. When asked about her outlook on life now, she responded, “I feel lucky.”

This change in perspective prompted by her survival brought about the courage to pursue her lifelong ambition of becoming a violinist.

Ditching the corporate life in exchange for an electric violin, Asha, now passionately teaches and performs with a well known Australian band called Porcelain. Now, she spends most of her time on stage performing intricate violin riffs and has also been seen with various artists such as Gnarls Barkley and The Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Despite the success, she takes the time to share her story as its one that embodies courage and independence. This should be a beacon of hope for the thousands of young breast cancer patients.

Ashamevlana.com

Porcelain on MySpace