ROANOKE (WSLS 10) -- Arthur Watkins didn't get to take part in last year's Susan G. Komen race for the cure in Roanoke but he watched from the hospital where his first grandson was being born.
It's a moment he once didn't think he'd live to see.
Recommended Videos
"I was just really sore and I was laying on the bed just checking myself," he recalled about the morning after he was horse playing, wrestling with his son.
"I felt this marble sized lump deep in my breast under the nipple," he described.
That April Fools' Day in 2005, Arthur told some of his friends. Some thought he was playing a joke. They told him it was nothing to worry about. He says one doctor told him to wait to see if it would go away. Then he went to see his primary care physician. He returned to the room after his exam with a referral to a breast cancer center.
"That Friday about 6:30 p.m. they called me and told me it was malignant. They didn't know what kind of cancer it was yet."
"That's when I Found out I had breast cancer." Watkins says he was in shock.
"I'd felt good. I felt better then I had my whole life," he recalls feeling before he was told.
Eight rounds of chemotherapy and 40 radiation treatments followed. Eleven years out, Watkins is working with Susan G. Komen in an effort to get men involved.
"There's not many resources out there for men," he said.
While the lifetime risk of breast cancer is less in men, about one in 1,000 versus one in eight for U.S. Women, according to Komen, Watkins is proof it happens. He urges men to to avoid dismissing concerns.
"Check yourself and don't be fold if you have a lump. Get it checked out."
After his treatment, Watkins went back to school to become a paramedic. It was a dream he says he never would have fulfilled had he not had breast cancer.
Watkins says he had no symptoms and no history of breast cancer in his family.