Matt Bowman was no stranger to helping other people. A former resident of Vincennes, Indiana, Bowman had worked as a firefighter as well as a nurse. But ever since he was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2017, he had turned his efforts toward helping others in a new way — creating awareness of and furthering the cause of male breast cancer.
Bowman said in a September 2021 interview to WTHI-TV10, “Breast cancer affects 1% of men a year. But it is found most often later because people don’t believe it exists.” According to him, "Men are too proud and too masculine to say oh I have breast cancer".
Since his diagnosis, Bowman had been pushing for people to take their health more seriously and get the help they needed at the earliest. He continued, reflecting on his own diagnosis, “We don't know, had we found this six months ago, nine months ago, where would we be? I don't know".
Bowman passed away on September 22, 2021, but his memory lives on. In his own way, Bowman paved the way for change by spreading awareness of male breast cancer. Friends and colleagues were initially surprised at the diagnosis of breast cancer since it is considered a rare condition in men. Bowman used the opportunity to educate them about his journey, a process that he himself would find very fulfilling.
Bowman said in an article for the Male Breast Cancer Coalition in 2017 that he believed education was key. “This disease is treatable, as long as it is not found too late. Because of the lack of education out there, I think that for every effort that is given to breast cancer in women, we need to spend four times that on male breast cancer to catch up with the rest of the breast cancer world".
