GIVING UP IS NOT AN OPTION

After his shock diagnosis of breast cancer, Zac Yarbrough has made it his mission to promote awareness of the disease in men

- MAXINE PETERS

HE’S so full of energy and vitality it’s hard to believe he’s fighting a private battle every day.

His smile is infectious, his motto is “no bad days” and one of his goals is to brighten the lives of everyone he knows.

It’s a mindset that helps keep Zac Yar positive even on the darkest days – and there have been some dark days.

Zac was diagnosed with male breast cancer four years ago and is sharing his story with YOU during Breast Cancer Awareness Month to raise awareness of an illness regarded as “more of a woman’s disease”.

The first sign of trouble came when he was swimming with his two daughters, Ella and Georgia, at their home in Jacksonville, Florida, in the US.

His arm grazed across his chest and he felt a knot under his left nipple. “It was small, you know, probably half the size of a marble,” Zac tells us via video call. “I didn’t really think anything of it.”

He had a busy life as a photographer and videographer, traveling the world for work. The knot didn’t go away but Zac presumed it was a cyst. “But when I got off the road four months later it had grown to the size of a golf ball so I knew I had to get it checked out.”

His doctor sent him for a mammogram and he then had a biopsy – and the news wasn’t good. Zac had stage 4 invasive ductal carcinoma, the most common breast cancer in men.

He was stunned. “I’d never heard of male breast cancer and no one in my family had had cancer so it didn’t even cross my mind that I might have it.”