Men’s breast cancer awareness in Yuma
Madeline Murray
YUMA, Ariz. (KYMA) – As Breast Cancer Awareness Month comes to an end, we want to bring you a special story of one person with local ties currently fighting the disease.
After years of seeking medical care for a lump in his chest, in March of 2025, Bill Stinemates discovered he had a grade-three tumor growing inside him.
Bill Stinemates, a pickupman for Honeycut Rodeo, says “December of 2021, I actually found a lump in my right breast, next to my nipple, and I went to my primary care doctor, who kind of check it out and sent me in for an ultrasound.”
After the ultrasound, they told him it was nothing and to come back in 60 days.
After multiple visits to the hospital where he was told not to worry, this March, doctors removed the lump for tests. That’s when he discovered he had breast cancer.
“I had a complete mastectomy on my right side, which turned out to be the absolute best decision I made because they did find more cancer,” says Stinemates.
Stinemates encourages people to take care of their health and keep asking questions, even when turned away.
Stinemates says, “the big thing is, we as men, can’t ignore our bodies, and when we find that lump, we find those things, but two more importantly is don’t take the ‘It’s nothing’ answer and push for further testing.”
We spoke to Bridget’s Gift, a local group that provides support to breast cancer patients in our area, about how you can bring more awareness to mens breast cancer.
The statistics or the number of incidents is so low compared to women, we just don’t expect the diagnosis and when it hits, it’s a big surprise,” said Wendy McKay, a board member for Bridget’s Gift.
According to Bridget’s Gift, breast cancer in men accounts for 1% of all cases diagnosed compared to 15.5% of breast cancer cases in women.
As a community, there are ways we can bring awareness to mens breast cancer.
“We need to get the statistics out there, we need to encourage our loved ones who feel like something’s different, we need to encourage them to seek medical attention, but keep talking about it is the most important part to get the awareness out there,” explains McKay.
Stinemates wants to bring awareness to the fact that breast cancer doesn’t just impact women and men need support too.