I am always excited to participate and to lead a team here in Portland, Oregon for the Susan G Komen Race for the Cure. (Team Haralee) Last year the race event had 48,000 participants. It is amazing to see a sea of white T-shirts dotted with pink T-shirts walking through the streets of downtown Portland.Oregon has the second highest rate of breast cancer in the country. Only second to Washington State, our neighbor 10 miles north of downtown Portland. With such a high incidence, it is only appropriate that we should have such large race participation. Someone either knows some one touched by the disease or they themselves are a survivor.
My company, Haralee.Com, Cool Garments for Hot Women, donates a percentage of every sale to breast cancer research. This year I decided to step up my commitment to a cure for breast cancer, and became a trained volunteer speaker for the Komen Foundation. Since there is no cure yet, we can work on prevention. Today I had my first speaking engagement at a retirement residence.
I accompanied the local director of the Susan G Komen for the Cure, who also happens to be a 30 year survivor, diagnosed with breast cancer at age 30 after the birth of her second child. We spoke in front of about 50 people, residents, and staff. Some of the women were also 30 year survivors and some survivors less than one year. It was a real privilege to speak with these folks about early detection.
Have you had your yearly mammogram?
The 2 biggest factors for getting breast cancer are:
#1 Being a Woman, #2 Too many Birthdays!
Early detection may save your life.
Make plans to join your local Susan G Komen Race for the Cure.
6 comments:
Those statistics about Washington and Oregon are scary. Here I am trying to figure out why this happened to me. No family history, nursed two children, etc. But, I have lived in Oregon for half of my 53 years now. Is there research into why the incidence is so high in the Pacific Northwest?
We all wish we knew. Some research is looking at the lack of Vitamin D from the sun. Since we have months with-out sunshine and then we lather up on the sunscreen in the sunny months????
But Oregon and Washington have high skin cancer rates too, so.....
We need a cure!
Look at the home page of sunarc.org. Interesting cancer incidence maps correlated with summer UVB doses.
Thanks that is interesting. By the time the maps are done it is unfortunate that the data is a few years old, and seldom seen is a more positive look.
Thanks femail doc for the sunarc.org website. It contains a PDF version of Dr. Grant's April 2008 presentation at UCSD with a lot of very current research information. It appears that for most cancers that are related to UVB, including breast, it is the current or later in life exposure that is protective. So, we can improve our health immediately with adequate sun exposure and/or supplementation with vitamin D.
His idea that some cancers and other diseases that correlate with UVB exposure in early life may be due to viral infections was also intriguing.
I think you will like the site: www.nonprofitshoppingmall.com. They list over 200 retailers that you can shop at and have a percent of your sales go to Susan G. Komen. A great place to do holiday shopping. ENJOY:)
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