By David Lazenby

Joseph “Joe” Edward Miller is a man with something to get off his chest.

Perched on the Oneoca resident’s bosom is a pin replicating the pink ribbons worn as a symbol of support for breast cancer survivors.

The pin adorns a a neatly-constructed outfit worn to an appointment with Vincent T. Karolewics, the director of radiation oncology at Lifefirst Imaging and Oncology Care Group in Cullman.

Miller said he wears the pin for two reasons.

One is to honor his maternal grandmother who died of breast cancer. The other is to promote breast self exams among men.

“It’s very important if you are male that you check your breasts just like a woman does,” said Miller who as a male breast cancer survivor is a medical rarity.

“Men are taught to check their testicles, but never taught to check their breasts,” said Miller who hopes to change that.

Miller discovered he had a 1.5 cm tumor “the size of an M&M” behind his right nipple in 2005.

“The year that I had breast cancer in 2005 there were only like 1,726 men who had breast cancer as opposed to 250,000 women who had breast cancer,” Miller said.

The low occurrence of the disease is not the only reason its survivors are so unusual, according to Miller.

“Breast cancer in men is very deadly,” said the 64-year-old retired social worker.

Miller discovered his problem one night in bed when he accidentally brushed against the nipple under which the tumor was lurking.

“It hurt so bad it awakened me,” Miller said.

Shortly thereafter, a doctor spotted discoloring in the areola surrounding the nipple when Miller was in the hospital for an emergency gall bladder surgery at Blount Memorial Hospital.

The doctor who spotted ordered Miller to return the next week for a biopsy.

“If they hadn’t found that he would have been dead in six months,” said Miller’s mother Viginia Miller, who also is a cancer survivor.

Joe said he would have had a health professional look at his condition because he was exhibiting symptoms of male breast cancer he had recently read about.

“It’s very typical of what a woman has,” Joe said.

Among the symptoms Joe said he exhibited included increased size, a change in shape and discoloration around the areola.

Miller said the wait for his biopsy test results was a long one.

“It took a time for the surgeon to get results from the needle biopsy back,” said Joe who added his doctor told him the biopsy was “probably going all over the united states” because it is a medical rarity.

“When the test results finally returned, there was good news and bad news.

The bad news was the sample tested positive for cancer. And it had already entered Joe’s blood stream and nerve endings.

The good news, Joe said, was “it had not turned on. It was laying in wait.”

“It was waiting for the opportune time to exhibit itself all over my body,” Joe said.

Joe said tumors are similar to light switches.

“It’s like an electrical current coming to your house,” Joe said. “Until you flip it on, the light won’t come on.”

Miller said his life was saved by the aggressive actions of his doctor, Jane Ghelsen.

“That’s what you want if you have breast cancer; you want someone who’s aggressive and assertive,” Joe said.

However, the chemotherapy could have been as fatal as the cancer. Joe said. “She put me on such an aggressive regiment of chemo that my fingers turned black.

Joe said his doctor noticed this condition before a treatment. “She said, ‘no chemo for you today. This is God telling us to stop,’” Joe said.

“That’s how she knew we reached my limit,” Joe added.

Ghelsen also said, “If I’d let you have chemo today, you would have been a dead man,” according to Joe.

Joe said chemotherapy took its toll on his appearance, eliminating his body hair. Luckily, Joe said, he never lost his eyelashes or eyebrows” while on chemotherapy.

“I had to shave not one time when I was on it,” Joe added.

In addition to chemotherapy, Joe had surgery to remove the tumor and his testes as well as radiation treatment.

Miller said the first two years after having cancer eradicated are crucial. “If you go the first two years, you’ve made it over the hump,” said Miller, “I’ve been two years past, and I’ve done real well until lately.”

Joe , who normally sees Karolewics about twice a year, recently increased his visits with the doctor because of soreness around his nipple where the surgery was performed.

“Something is telling my body that something is just not right,” Joe said.

In addition to his pin, Joe wears a bracelet, which is adorned with four words Joe said is important to anyone coping with cancer. “Hope”, “courage”, “care” and support.”

Because his disease is so unusual among men, Joe said his support system was limited.

“I really have no one I can talk to about male breast cancer — it’s so rare,” Miller said.

Miller said during the early stages of his slugout with cancer, he was struck with deep desolation.

“I got stuck in the grief part,” Joe said, referring to the Kübler-Ross model, which describes a process of death with five discrete stages. “There were days when I would just bawl like a baby,” Joe said.

Joe added that twice he asked God to end his life, but eventually realized “That’s not my request -- that ‘s God’s will.”

Joe said it was then that things changed for Joe. And, he said life has never been the same.

“Nothing bothers me anymore; I don’t get angry anymore things are just fine and dandy with me. It’s like a burden has been lifted from me,

Joe said. “And you’ll hear cancer patients say that.”

Although Joe’s maternal grandmother also had breast cancer, he knows he did not inherit the condition from her because of a genetics test that proved she was not the carrier.

“I don’t have any children but my brother has children,” Joe said, explaining his decision to have the test done.