I want to educate as many people of ways to lower their risk of breast cancer.
If you ever feel something that is different in your breast go to the doctor and get it checked dont let it go.
Former Venezuelan beauty queen Eva Ekvall has died from breast cancer aged just 28.
The mother-of-one died on Saturday in a Houston, Texas hospital after a two year struggle with Breast Cancer. She was married to radio producer John Fabio Bermudez and had a two-year-old daughter, Miranda.
Famous in her teenage years for her beauty, Ms. Ekvall went on to become a news anchor, author and one of her home country's greatest cancer charity advocates.
Born to an American father and Jamaican mother, she was working in a clothes store in Caracas when she was spotted by a modeling agency scout.
'To me that was ridiculous,' she told the Guardian earlier this year. 'I thought I was overweight. I just couldn't be a model.
'But one day I got fired so I took a cab and went to the modeling agency. Once they saw me … they said they had the next Miss Venezuela right there.'
Aged 17, she was crowned Miss Venezuela in 2000.
She was diagnosed with advanced breast cancer in February 2010, and underwent eight months of treatment including chemotherapy, radiation and a mastectomy.
She had noticed a lump in her breast months earlier but thought her body was changing due to her pregnancy.
'I was very angry because I should have known,' she said at the time. 'My aunt had breast cancer twice and my grandmother died from breast cancer. And I just let time go.'
'In the beginning I wasn't sure if I looked good or not. Then I realised that wasn't the point. I wasn't supposed to look good, I had cancer.'
In her book, Ms Ekvall described her joy at having a daughter, writing 'that happiness, although [Miranda] may not know it or understand it, keeps me alive today'.
'Sadly, cancer had the last word,' writer Leonardo Padron told Globovision.
Legacy: Ekvall and her book are credited with a rise in Venezuelan women having breast examinations
It is widely credited with raising awareness of the disease in Venezuela.
She knew her book would shock a nation where beauty queens are major celebrities and cosmetic surgery is commonplace.
'It's absurd that there should be a taboo about breast cancer in a country of breast implants, where women have few reservations about showing off their surgically-enhanced breasts,' she told BBC Mundo in March.
She is also credited with a reported increase in the number of women going for breast examinations.
But many Venevision viewers were unaware of her illness as she wore a wig and makeup.
'It's painful to look at yourself in the mirror,' she told the Guardian in February this year.
'Your face gets swollen. You lose every single hair in your body – your eyebrows, your eyelashes.
'You become some weird animal or something, you don't recognize yourself.
'That was scary. Especially because my job has to do with my looks. I had to look decent and not appear sick.'
She had demonstrated 'extraordinary calm and courage in her fight against cancer. SenosAyuda, a Caracas-based breast cancer awareness group, said in a tribute on its website that the former beauty queen's legacy will help thousands of Venezuelan women in the future.
Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk
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