One's character and personality will ultimately determine how she confronts breast cancer.

I have always kept in my mind what a very close friend of mine told me that not all women can be as brave and daring as my late wife in her face-off with breast cancer in 2000. In fact, when she set up the Philippine Breast Cancer Network in 1997, not a few were curious in knowing what made her do it despite so many patients before her. Only when her activist background in her younger years became known would it then be understood how such a simple and soft-spoken mother of four be able to have done all she did in a very brief period before she claimed her right to be in the eternal kingdom of our Lord God Almighty.

Breast cancer chooses no one (rich or poor, young or old, learned or not, with or without child, colored or not, Muslim or Christian) - you just have to be a woman because this dreaded disease has already become a global epidemic. The cancer industry continues to make enormous profits from all medical aspects of the disease -from detection to treatment - yet until this very day, no cure can be guaranteed no matter how much money one has wherever in the entire world.

This reality places a huge burden on every woman diagnosed or suspected to have breast cancer. Hounded by the fear of death, she becomes desperate in seeking for a cure. Thinking that doctors would know what to do, she is not aware that most if not all doctors have limited if not archaic understandings of the disease. In fact, an OB-GYN with whom a woman goes to would automatically refer her breast concerns to a surgeon who would most often than not require a mammogram and/or biopsy. Upon diagnosis, the surgeon would naturally operate, an oncologist would expectantly go for chemo and a radiologist would perform radiation.

With minimal understanding of the disease and absence of other treatment options, she submits to all of the above without real participation in decision making. For others, medical insurance coverage and/or family pressure led her to the cut-poison-burn cycle. For those who have opted for natural or alternative options either from the very start or after conventional treatment, decision making could also have been influenced by family and/or friends. But for whatever path and from whoever the patient's choice came from, it will remain the patient's burden to heal her own self.

Here lies the crucial factor in confronting breast cancer. One's character and personality!

In any sport, it is one's fighting heart that gives that added finish towards victory. So it is in the arena of breast cancer. Family and friends though fully supportive will remain to be mere spectators. True victory comes when the patient carves her own path and surmounts her personal limitations, regardless of the outcome.

Yes, not all women can be like Rosa .... and this is why no woman should ever get breast cancer!