I woke up that Black Friday ready to go shopping. That morning I had no clue that I was going to discover something that could take my life down a road I certainly was not ready to be on. It felt like it had sprung up out of nowhere and I was terrified of what was to come.

How would I deal with it?

I had no clue.

This year, it is estimated that there will be 246,660 new cases of invasive cancer in the U.S., according to Susan G. Komen’s website. This year there will also be almost 40,500 deaths from breast cancer.

When I found the lump in my breast that morning, I had no idea just how much breast cancer affected people or how it would come to affect me. All I knew was that at age 19, I was in no way ready to deal with something so intense. I cried a lot that morning.

Almost a year later, my life has changed in many ways and stayed the same in others. After many doctors visits at a breast care center and a biopsy, a procedure in which they take a sample of the tumor to check if it was cancerous, I was relieved to find out that it was not. It was then that I learned I have fibroadenoma disease.

Fibroadenomas are a solid, benign, meaning not cancerous, tumor commonly found in women ages 15 to 35. I would come eventually find out while writing a story for class that this disease runs in my family. I had not been ready for any of this and I was not ready for the next step I was going to take either.

In a rash decision I decided to have the lump removed, my first surgery ever.

The following January, I sat in a cold room with an IV drip in me under several blankets, waiting for my procedure. I woke up a couple hours later with a radiating pain I had never felt before, but with reprieve in the back of my mind that the tumor was removed.

From this terrifying, transformative stage in my life I have come to realize many things about myself and a whole lot about breast cancer and benign breast diseases. What I found did not necessarily shock me, but it gave me a reason to be outspoken about breast cancer.

Both men and women are at risk for breast cancer. Fewer than five percent of breast cancer cases occur in women under the age of 40. The most shocking fact I read on Komen’s website was that breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer death among women ages 20 to 59. All this research and knowledge is what has led me to passionately support breast cancer awareness this month.

I had experienced something I wish for no other woman to experience: the fear of having breast cancer. Fear of having my body fight me. Fear of possibly losing something that physically defined me as a woman.

From this came my own fight to let friends, family and even strangers know that we should all be aware. We should all be checking and getting mammograms even before the age of 50.

Know your family history. Know your body and above all else, do not be afraid because there are millions of us who wear that pink ribbon to show we are here for you.