November 19, 2009

Pink Ribbons Project’s opposing response to the revised screening guideline recommendations

At Pink Ribbons Project, we were extremely disappointed and discouraged by the recent announcement of the revised screening guideline recommendations set forth by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF).  The revised guidelines represent an enormous setback in women’s healthcare.   The suggested changes will cause immeasurable negative consequences, the most tragic being loss of life.  Unfortunately the revisions were strongly based on statistics without adequately taking into account the intrinsic value of human life.

Our organization’s mission is stalwartly dedicated to raising awareness and educating about breast health and breast cancer.  Along with many other respected cancer organizations and health care providers, we strongly promote the fact that early detection saves lives; and we firmly believe that earlier screening means earlier detection of breast cancer, which in turn can result in less invasive treatment.   We encourage and empower women of all ages to be vigilant with consistent and diligent breast healthcare.  The recent release of this study and the subsequent coverage in the news has already caused confusion and will undermine much of the good work that has been done to promote good breast healthcare practices.

The backlash response against these revised guidelines has been tremendous.  And rightfully so.

Pink Ribbons Project stands in good company with M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, American Cancer Society, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, LIVESTRONG, The Rose in Houston, Harris County Hospital District, Lester and Sue Smith Breast Center, American College of Radiology, all the members, both individually and collectively of the Breast Health Collaborative of Texas and many more.

We ask our supporters to stand with us to make sure that the USPSTF’s revised guidelines don’t become our reality.

Susan Rafte

Executive Director

Pink Ribbons Project, in motion against breast cancer

2449 South Blvd. Suite 100 Houston, TX 77098                          

PHONE: 713.524.PINK (7465)  www.pinkribbons.org

Using the arts, Pink Ribbons Project saves lives and improves the quality of life for those touched by breast cancer.

November 10, 2009

Run for a Reason!

Didn’t get a chance to enter the sold-out the  Chevron Houston Marathon in January? Then join us for Runner’s Appreciation Day this Saturday, November 14 from 11am- 2pm at the Sports Authority, 2131 Post Oak Blvd.

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30 Chevron Houston Marathon entries will be raffled.   Marathon staff, trainers and charity program representatives will also be on hand to answer any event related questions you may have.

11:00 a.m. – 12:20 p.m.: Raffle ticket registration period. No raffle tickets will be distributed after 12:20 p.m.

12:30 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.: 10 tickets will be drawn at 12:30 p.m., 1:00 p.m. and 1:30 p.m.

Limit one raffle ticket per person. Winners must be present to win. Upon winning, winner must sign up and pay entry fee immediately. Marathon entry fee is $120.

Already signed up for the Chevron Houston Marathon and interested in running for Pink Ribbons Project? Click here.

October 27, 2009

5th Annual Breast Health Summit

This Thursday and Friday (October 29-30), the Breast Health Collaborative of Texas will present the 5th Annual Breast Health Summit–a gathering aimed at improving access to care across the state.

Chaired by Pink Ribbons Project Associate Director Loubel Cruz and CanCare Director of Programs Kim Akel, the agenda for the summit is exciting, timely and jam-packed.

Special guest Thomas Moore will speak about “illness is a right of passage and spirit and soul in the treatment of cancer”, a health care reform panel will feature representatives Ellen Cohen and Garnet Coleman, and Bill Gimson, the Executive Director of CPRIT (Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas) will present.

For the complete agenda and to register, click here:

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October 19, 2009

A pink engagement!

This blog centers around the goings-on at Pink Headquarters, which is breast cancer related 99% of the time, but we wanted to interrupt this Breast Cancer Awareness Month to bring you an exciting announcement!

Associate Director Loubel Cruz is ENGAGED!

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We couldn’t be happier for our fearless leader and her soon-to-be husband.

Congrats, Loubel!

October 7, 2009

Guest post: Pink Alive – KIDS!

Pink Ribbons Project is presenting a brand new program for the young ones touched by breast cancer. It is called Pink Alive- KIDS! and the first workshop begins on October 24. For more information, http://www.pinkribbons.org/pinkalivekids/.

The idea was brought to Pink Ribbons Project by a couple of fabulous women- including breast cancer survivors–who saw a need in our community, and wanted to do something about it!

Michelle was one of these women. And also turns out to be quite a writer, so we asked her to write a guest post!

Enjoy.

Michelle

Michelle

I have been given the task of writing a brief history of my own personal story. I love assignments. There is enough school girl still left in me that I thrive on pleasing the person who is doling out responsibilities. In my own personal report card on life I want to make sure that I get a check plus on ‘completes all tasks in a timely manner.’ This is just as important as getting the good grade on the completed assignment itself. I want to be in the National Honor Society of life. Everynite I have my own little induction ceremony in my head with bowed heads and dimmed lights and lit candles. Is someone tapping me on the shoulder? Am I doing my best? This is a question I continually ask myself. Where does that come from?

My sense is that my overall life GPA is probably enough to meet the requirement of induction, but when you breakdown the point system, the numbers are all over the map. Before I was diagnosed with breast cancer I was a fairly self-reflective individual. Since the diagnosis, it (the self-reflection) actually means something to me. When you are going along in life with the tacit expectation that your life span is going to fit neatly into the actuarial tables you figure you have some wiggle room. There is plenty of time to work on aspects of your life that, for now, you have swept under the rug. After the diagnosis of a life threatening illness, you have to recalculate your time line. Of course you have the absolute expectation that after all the godforsaken medical interventions you have had that you are one of the 80% plus who will never experience a recurrance of their cancer, but, just in case…You are going to play the odds game and try to outwit fate.

When I was diagnosed with stage 2a breast cancer two and half years ago the trajectory of my life acutely changed. Whatever sense of control that I once thought I possessed had disappeard into the ethers. My 3 children (at the time, 3, 5 and 6 years old, respectively) and my husband now faced the very real prospect of life without a mother/wife. I was terrified not only for myself (at the time a 38 year old woman with no family history of breast cancer who decided to get screening mammography at an early age based on a passing suggestion by my gynecologist), but moreso for my family. I’ll be honest, regarding my husband, he is amazing and we have a great ride together and I love him dearly. But, I figured if I died (which every woman who is ever diagnosed with any life threatening illness immediately thinks), he’d just be able to go out and get himself a younger, cuter, blonder, more petite version of myself. It’s not like he’d be cheating on me because I’d be dead. But, my kids…that’s a whole different ballgame. How can a child be left motherless, especially at such a young age. Sure it happens to…’people’. But according to my plan, I wasn’t one of those ‘people’. This scenario was not in my play book.

As my husband and I settled into the diagnosis and we realized the course of action set before us we were faced with the very real challenge of how to explain this to our children. What we quicky determined is that there is no one way to do this and it wasn’t going to be just one conversation but an ongoing discussion. We enlisted the help of websites, doctors, books, match book covers…Just about anything we could find. To some extent, the young age of my children was beneficial for both them and for me. They were too young to understand fully the implications of my diagnosis so this limited some of their long term worries. They were impacted more on the basis of my inability to mother them in the way that they had become accustomed. When I was sick from chemotherapy, they had to be quieter or go on play dates with friends. They had to adjust to a bald mom (of whom they have long since forgotten). They couldn’t be held when I was recovering from one of my many surgeries. I’m sure that this made them feel scared and insecure. We talked about it and talked about it and talked about it some more. Everyone went to therapy. Everyone went to some more therapy. In the midst of my treatment, my kids switched elementary schools (and, by the grace of God, my family was embraced at their new school). I was the new bald mom. The kids didn’t really care, but they had to explain to their friends why their mom had no hair and always wore a bandana on her head. My middle son told his new friends that I had cancer; skin cancer (he was 5 and after all, the mastectomy had affected my skin). When taking my 3 year old daughter to get a haircut she was asked how short she wanted it and she responed, “Let’s just shave it!” With both a bald mother and father (my husband kept his head shaved in solidarity), that seemed to be the norm in our family.
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Thirty one months later (since the day of my diagnosis) we have weathered the storm. Knock on wood, I’m good (though I do think I’m dying every time a get a sniffle or a hang nail. Just ask my husband and my massage therapist-Yes, once you have cancer or a chronic illness you enlist the help of every alternative therapy practitioner that has ever been listed in the yellow pages-chiropractic medicine, accupuncture, Reiki, cupping…). But, we still experience residual effects from the storm. Two of my kids require a lot of verbal and physical reassurance. Not so much about my illness. It manifests itself in other ways (am I going to be late for to pick them up from school? am I always nearby in the house? if I step outside to take out the garbage, I have to announce it, etc…) and I have to remind myself not to get impatient with them. Just like me, they are still processing the course of events that have transpired thus far in their very young lives. The other child has responded differently. This one is impish and pushes the envelope on just about every situation and we have to walk the very fine line of tolerance and accountability. This too requires patience and discernment on a whole different level.

All of this is very basic parenting stuff, but confounded by our situation. We are not unique in having had ‘circumstances’ befall us; everyone has a backdrop on which their lives are created. As I mentioned earlier, having had breast cancer while raising young children has been beneficial. Not only for the reasons previously mentioned, but it has been the gift of clarity. It is much easier to sort out what matters and what doesn’t matter (though I still get caught up in the nonsense of life just like everyone else). That is a true gift and one for which I am continually grateful.

So, everyday I wake up and thank God for the gift of life with all the good and the bad. I thank Him for the things that really matter, my husband, my children, my friends and the relationships I have with each of them. I thank Him for the color pink which, in my mind, has come to represent hope and gratitude. Since my diagnosis, almost unconsciously, I usually have something on my person that is pink. I’m not a tremendously girly, girl but this color is a visual reminder to me of all that I hold dear. I have had the good fortune of being in a city with so many available resources. One of them, introduced to me by a dear friend who has since continued her journey beyond this life, has been Pink Ribbons Project. Through this non profit organization that provides avenues of art therapy for those whose lives have been affected by breast cancer, I have been able to assist in the creation of a program called Pink Alive Kids. This program will help those families with children, very young to teen, navigate the complexities of having breast cancer and raising children. And it will be a resource and an outlet for children who have no ‘kids of breast cancer moms/dads’ cohort to call their own. They will see that their are other kids who share in their insecurities and they will be offered healthy and safe ways to express the gamut of their emotions. So, in the month of October, despite the overtones of black and orange and all that is ghoolish and scary, I challenge you to Think Pink, if for no other reason it reminds you to have hope and to be grateful!

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September 29, 2009

Tour de Pink – September 13, 2009

We’ve been keeping busy here at the Pink office…

IMG_7756(note the grey skies and looming rainstorm)

We might have gotten a little bit of rain (ok, a LOT of rain for about 30 minutes there) but the skies cleared and we had one of our most successful Tour de Pinks ever!

But let’s start at the beginning…

We thanked our generous and amazing underwriters at a lovely cocktail reception hosted by our presenting sponsor, BBVA Compass.

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We worked furiously to get ready for packet pick-up, which was a very smooth success thanks to amazing volunteers!

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We packed up the vans with food, water and gatorade to be delivered to the “Pink Pit Stops”….

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….which, again, was a smooth success thanks to all of our fabulous volunteers!

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We may have had a few of these in the meantime…

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and a LOT of these…

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Back to the bike ride.

We had a VERY early start on Sunday, and despite the gloomy forecast, we had fabulous riders, volunteers and sponsors who helped make this (dare we say?) the most fun Tour de Pink EVER.

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the start/ finish line

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all decked out in pink!

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members of the biggest Tour de Pink 2009 team- Team Shannon O’Brien!

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the PVAMU drum line performing at the post-festival

A huge thank you to our fabulous riders, volunteers, sponsors, pit stops, and everyone else that made Tour de Pink such a great success. Help us get to our fundraising goal of $350,000 here!

Also, in honor of the 5th Anniversary of Tour de Pink, we created a Tour de Pink Commemorative Poster. For details, click here.

September 24, 2009

Pink goes country

Complete Tour de Pink blog coming soon (and it will be a big one! with lots of pictures!) , but in the mean time, we wanted you to know that we are going country next week! We are starting breast cancer month off with a twang! We are boot scoot’n boogy-ing!

You get the point…

So, join us next week at the grand opening of a brand new music venue- Houston Live Arena!

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August 26, 2009

Pic of the Week: Great Day Houston

Last week, we took over the studio audience of a taping of Great Day Houston! If you were tuning in, you were likely to either

a) see our Ride Director complete with her pink feathered boa, Margaret Shelton, introduce Debra Duncan in the beginning of the show

b) see various volunteers wearing their pink and fidgeting nervously in the audience or

c) catch a great segment on how to re-use household items and turn them into great jewelry pieces (We are still thinking about that one…)

Pink Volunteers with Debra Duncan at Great Day Houston- August 2009

Pink Volunteers with Debra Duncan at Great Day Houston- August 2009

We were all there in a concentrated effort to get more attention for Tour de Pink 2009! Have we mentioned yet it is our 5 year anniversary? Register here–online registration ends September 6th!

(Oh, and check out ANOTHER great blog post about our outing here- we LOVE Schipul! They make our website look pretty :) )

August 10, 2009

Why do you ride a bike?

As you probably know, Pink Ribbons Project is celebrating its 5th anniversay of Tour de Pink. Over these years, we have met some amazing and inspiring people!

We thought it would be interesting to spotlight a couple of people and ask them- “Why do you ride a bike?”

Introducing Margaret Shelton, Ride Director!

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“Fun, friends, health, fitness, causes, outdoors — so many reasons to be on a bike!  Getting away from the humdrum of work and family life, doing something different from what other folks do, meeting amazing people at every cycling event, joining others to support worthy causes [Pink Ribbons Project comes to mind  :) ].  “

Join Margaret and her pink feathered boa this year at Tour de Pink on September 13th! Registration at www.tourdepink.org.

August 3, 2009

Offensive?

In a list of the 15 most offensive, banned and rejected advertisements from all over the world, we found this:

(via http://oddee.com/item_96502.aspx)

This advertisement was funded by The Breast Cancer Fund- USA and was rejected over fears that the public would find the images too shocking.

What do YOU think?