Meet the Couple Battling Male & Female Breast Cancer

One couple. One disease. Two very different stories of survival.

Each October, Breast Cancer Awareness Month is especially important for Gerard and Meg Campion, as they've both been diagnosed with the disease often thought to only affect women.

Eight years ago, Gerard learned he had male breast cancer after finding a strange blister on his chest. Three years later, his wife Meg was told she also had breast cancer.

"I remember thinking, he's not supposed to have this. I am," Meg said of her husband's ongoing battle with the disease.

Gerard underwent a mastectomy and four chemo treatments before learning his breast cancer had returned just five years and one week after his first diagnosis. He is now three years into his second battle with the disease. Meg's cancer, which unlike her husband's had not traveled to her lymph nodes, underwent a lumpectomy and radiation and is now five years cancer free.

Gerard, a father of two and grandfather, is now working to raise awareness of male breast cancer by sharing his story and details of his battle.

"I have this opportunity to talk about it, to hopefully alleviate fears that people have, to talk about men, to get them to watch themselves," he said

The American Cancer Society estimates more than 2,000 men (about one percent of the breast cancer community) in the U.S. alone will be diagnosed with the disease this year.

"We're just moving forward and dealing and concentrating on [Gerard]," Meg said of her husband. "Simply put, he's my hero."

"The cancer's at some point going to get me," he said. "And it's going to take a while to get me because I ain't gonna let it get there."

TODAY first reported this story.