If you think that breast cancer is just a woman’s disease, you would be wrong. While more women get breast cancer than men do, men can get it, too. Just ask James Keegan. He was 65 years old in May 2013 when his wife felt a small hard lump under the skin of his left breast.

Keegan went to his primary care doctor, who also felt the lump and advised his patient to schedule a mammogram. After reviewing the mammogram, the radiologist recommended a biopsy, which consisted of a needle inserted into the lump in his breast. “I received a call two days later that confirmed that the lump was cancerous,” Keegan recalled.

He arranged a second visit with his primary care doctor so together they could come up with a plan on how to proceed. His doctor recommended that Keegan make an appointment with a breast surgeon without delay. “With cancer, the sooner it is treated the better,” Keegan said.

He visited the surgeon his primary care doctor recommended and then made an appointment with another surgeon to get a second opinion. Both doctors described the plan for the surgery, the physical impact it would have on his body, and his outlook for the future in exactly the same way.

“I chose the first surgeon to do the surgery for several reasons,” Keegan recalled. “He had performed the same surgery on a friend of mine [who] gave him very positive feedback, and the hospital where the surgery would take place was a very good hospital. It was close to my home so there would be less impact on my family. He also had a great personality and bedside manner.” 

They scheduled a left-breast mastectomy for Keegan. “When I was scheduled, it was not common practice to remove both breasts as it is often done today,” he said.

After his surgery, in which all the cancerous tissue was removed and the area healed, Keegan began a program of chemotherapy that lasted for a year. He did not require radiation, another post-surgery therapy. “I had weekly chemo visits for six months followed by tri-weekly visits for the next six months,” he said. Upon its completion, Keegan took tamoxifen, a prescribed oral medication, every day for the next 10 years to ensure that his cancer would not return.

“My side effects from the chemo were minor,” he said. “I lost some hair and, on the night when I knew that I would have my chemo the next day, I couldn’t sleep.”

He has a yearly mammogram on his right breast and has been cancer-free for 13 years.

According to the Cleveland Clinic, a nationally recognized medical center, breast cancer can be hereditary. Certain genes can be passed down from family members that can put you at an increased risk of developing breast cancer. However, Keegan said that there is no history of breast cancer in his family.

The American Cancer Society says that fewer than one percent of breast cancers in the United States occur in men—about 1 in 755 men—and can occur at any age.

Keegan has this advice to share with others, based on his own experience. “Do breast checks yourself. Ask your primary care physician to examine your breasts during your annual checkup. And if signs appear, act quickly.”