By Emmaleigh McNally
Staff Writer

October is breast cancer awareness month. Many people have died from breast cancer, but there are always survivors. Even celebrities like Olivia Newton-John, Giuliana Rancic from E! News, Sheryl Crow, Robin Roberts from Good Morning America and Angelina Jolie were all diagnosed or threatened with breast cancer at one point in their lifetime.

Some of the celebrities looked into their diagnosis of breast cancer repeatedly; Olivia Newton-John told “Everyday Health,” “I was diagnosed in 1992 after a self-examination, which led me to my doctor for further testing. I wasn’t feeling right, and I had found lumps before, but this time, it just felt different.”

“My doctor recommended a mammogram, which was negative, but my instincts were telling me that something wasn’t right. From there, we did a needle biopsy, which also was negative. After a surgical biopsy, they found the cancer,” Newtown-John said. “I don’t tell the story to scare people but to really stress the importance of knowing your own body and trusting your instincts. This is the very reason I am now such a big supporter of monthly breast self-exams.”

Another celebrity who thought she would be diagnosed with breast cancer, Giuliana Rancic told E! News “I think being diagnosed with breast cancer was a part of God’s plan for me to help me be aware that it can happen, and that I should have took care of it before hand but I didn’t.”

Several celebrities were even shocked about their diagnosis. Country singer Sheryl Crow was not expecting the diagnosis. “’Someone like me shouldn’t be diagnosed with breast cancer. That was going through my mind. I wasn’t thinking about the diagnosis. It was a shock.” Crow told Bloomingale’s Pink Book.

Celebrities like Robin Roberts from “Good Morning America” were asked to write a book about how her life was going to change after being diagnosed with cancer. “I was asked to write a book about my experience with cancer. I respectfully declined the offer. Cancer is just a chapter in my life, and it won’t be the last chapter, ” Roberts told “People Magazine.”

Angelina Jolie, an actress who was not even diagnosed with breast cancer made sure she took care of the possibility of being diagnosed with cancer when she found out she had an 87 percent of receiving breast cancer. Jolie’s mastectomy lowered her chances of developing breast cancer to under five percent, and testing of the removed breast tissue showed no signs of cancerous cells.

On April 27, Jolie had reconstructive surgery involving implants and allografts, a preventive oophorectomy, as she still has a 50 percent risk of developing ovarian cancer due to the same genetic anomaly.

“I choose not to keep my story private because there are many women who do not know that they might be living under the shadow of cancer,” Jolie told “The New York Times.” “ It is my hope that they, too, will be able to get gene tested, and that if they have a high risk they, too will know that they have strong options. And having a mother that had died from cancer at such a young age was really hard and I couldn’t do that to my children. I don’t think any mother can.”

So many people deal with breast cancer, warn the ones you care about deeply. Breast cancer can happen to anyone.