Inside Prevention

Breast Cancer Fund celebrates 10 years scaling Mt. Shasta (Mt. Shasta Herald, 3/18/2013)

Jen Bray is a firefighter for the U.S. Forest Service and is the subject of a new article in the Mt. Shasta Herald. As this year’s “Community Climber” the money Jen raises will go toward Breast Cancer Services of Siskiyou County.

“I am inspired by survivors of cancer and the strength and passion they have for life and I vow to do more to eliminate this disease... for my children’s children,” Jen was quoted as saying in the article.  

The Breast Cancer Fund embraces mountain climbing as a metaphor for the critical work we are doing to prevent the environmental causes of this devastating disease.

This is the second year Jen is participating in Climb Agains the Odds, and she is on a roll. Check out her interview with KOBI-TV NBC5.

To learn more about Climb Against the Odds and this year's team, visit the event website.

Prevention Is Power: Why it matters so much

As we wind down our October Prevention Is Power campaign, we're reminded of how important our work to prevent breast cancer is for our community, their loved ones and our collective future. Thank you, Liz, for sharing your powerful story. This blog post was also featured on Care2.com.

By Liz Jones, Guest Blogger

When something big and unexpected happens to you, when you get your socks knocked off and aren’t sure you’ll be able to find them any time soon, when you find yourself overwhelmed in a way you’ve never experienced before, what do you do? Sit still or pace around in circles? Get very quiet or talk to everyone? Pull the covers over your head or develop a game plan? Decide you have enough information or research, research, research?  In 1993 when I was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 48, I did all of the above.
 
Ten years later, after making many changes in my life and saying “yes” to several paths I would never have entertained during my prior-to-breast-cancer life, I was diagnosed with a second primary breast cancer. It was 2003 and I was 58. I was aware I was at risk for developing metastatic breast cancer, but it never entered my mind that my body might develop two unrelated breast cancer tumors. The nerve of it! I mean, after all!

This time around I made decisions more quickly and surely, and I became more convinced than ever that the causes of my two breast cancer tumors were related to my past. I now know I had been inadvertently exposed to carcinogens as a child. I grew up in the 1940s and 1950s in Niagara Falls, New York, home to inexpensive hydroelectric power and many chemical manufacturing plants. It was a time when the effects of chemical pollutants on our bodies were not well understood. I remember taking in the chemical smells and looking at the gray clouds of pollutants hanging over the city and telling myself they were my “bread and butter.” Hard to fathom now, but I actually viewed the pollutants positively. Well, now is very different from then, when I had completely bought into the popular marketing line, “Better living through chemistry.” The only downside I remember is our frequently wiping the accumulated layers of soot from our lawn furniture every summer.

The statistics tell us that 1 woman in 8 will develop breast cancer in her lifetime. Last month I was in Niagara Falls attending my 50th high school reunion. One evening as I sat around a table with six of my female classmates, the subject turned to breast cancer. We discovered that four of us have had breast cancer. I know this sample is small, but I believe our tally at the table that evening might well be telling us something.

In the fall of 1997 the Breast Cancer Fund entered my life. I began to learn about the effect of under-studied and unregulated chemicals on our bodies and our lives. Now I know that endocrine-disrupting chemicals and formaldehyde-releasing preservatives lurk in the products we use every day. I know that even very low doses of bisphenol A (BPA), found in the lining of food cans, can cause harm to babies and young children. I know that the beauty industry, whose products we slather all over our skin, manufactures products containing substances toxic to humans. I know that biomonitoring (measuring the levels of chemical pollutants in people’s bodies) and health-tracking programs (examining regional disease rates) are critical to larger efforts to reduce chemical exposures linked to disease.

And so I became a fundraiser and strong voice for the Breast Cancer Fund. To spread the word, I ask my community, year after year, to contribute to my hiking effort in the Breast Cancer Fund’s Peak Hike for Prevention. My loyal following of 50 appreciates both learning from me and making a financial contribution to this important work.

I also choose my personal care and household cleaning products carefully, bypassing the advertising and going straight to an examination of their contents. I buy locally grown, pesticide-free produce as much as possible, minimize my use of canned foods, choose wild fish over farmed, and free range chickens over those confined to crowded quarters in too-small cages. I try to “live lightly” on this earth, respecting its land, water, air and living things. And I model my behaviors and choices for my children and grandchildren – my most precious legacy. I see myself as one of the many human faces of people living with the effects of diseases linked to chemical exposure. Do you see yourself this way too?

Two-time breast cancer survivor Liz Jones is a mother of two and grandmother of six who lives in San Jose, California.

Prevention Is Power: One survivor's story

This October—we call it Breast Cancer Prevention Month—the Breast Cancer Fund's Prevention Is Power campaign is educating thousands about what they can do to reduce breast cancer risk.

For many, including breast cancer survivor Leslie Vanoni, prevention is about protecting our daughters from this devastating disease. Here's Leslie's story.

By Leslie Vanoni, Guest Blogger

On Valentine’s Day 2011, then sober a year and a half, I got the news that the breast cancer I thought I had beat years earlier had metastasized to my bones and lungs. Stage-four cancer. I was terrified, knowing there’s no stage five. How was I going to tell my twin thirteen-year-old daughters? They had already been through so much. I was diagnosed the first time on their fourth birthday. They saw their healthy mother become very sick. They saw me cry as my hair fell out. They saw the fear in my eyes. I became angry and full of self-pity. I drank a lot.
 
This time, I set out to show my girls it is possible to get through difficult times with grace. While I was afraid most days, I stayed sober.
 
In January 2012, I was told that I was in complete remission. Just as I was recovering from a year of treatment, my employer, Autodesk, Inc., invited me to be the company’s sponsored climber in the Breast Cancer Fund’s Climb Against the Odds 2012 expedition of Mt. Shasta. I didn’t know a thing about the Breast Cancer Fund, and I was out of shape, but I said yes. If I had spent any time looking up on the Internet what it takes to climb the massive Mt. Shasta, I would have pulled the “cancer card” and politely declined. But on blind faith, I decided to do it, and it was one of the best decisions I have made in a long time.
 
Training became a form of meditation. Putting one foot in front of the other, I began to feel stronger and calmer. When I shared my story with my fellow trainees, they didn’t gasp. Instead, they greeted me before every training hike with hugs.
 
On the hikes I began to learn about the Breast Cancer Fund and why these people were so passionate about its mission to prevent the disease. My girls ask me all the time if they will get breast cancer. I wish I knew that the answer was no, but I don't. What I do know is that the Breast Cancer Fund is working every day to make sure fewer people ever have to get the terrible diagnosis. And I know I will continue to do what I can to support this work.
 
Driving alone up to Mt. Shasta to begin the expedition, I began to think I had completely lost my mind—that maybe I should turn around and go home. But I didn’t, and when I was greeted by the other climbers and the Breast Cancer Fund staff, I immediately knew everything would be OK. Doubt was replaced by faith, and fear was replaced by courage. I was not alone, and we were climbing to prevent breast cancer. I was becoming a woman I could be proud of and a mother my girls could be proud of. I was realizing that focusing on preventing breast cancer was helping me get my life back.

Summiting for survivors (Daily Pilot, 5/26/2012)

Lori Fallace, 2012 Climb Against the Odds team member from Irvine, is the subject of a new article in the Daily Pilot:

Fallace, Irvine Unified School District 2012 middle school teacher of the year, has taught science and health classes for years. Before she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2008, Fallace thought that she knew all there was to taking care of her body.

Now she knows a whole lot more.

Since beating the cancer after six months of chemotherapy, Fallace has become a voice for the Breast Cancer Fund, a national nonprofit that advocates for the prevention of breast cancer through increasing education and lowering risk factors. (Read complete article.)

Go Lori! To learn more about Climb Against the Odds and this year's team, visit the event website. The climb is just three weeks away!

Lessons from our Mothers: Joey Beauregard

In honor of Mother's Day this Sunday, our partners in the Safer States network are publishing a series of blogs, Lessons from our Mothers. Breast Cancer Fund advocate, Climb Against the Odds team member and breast cancer survivor Joey Beauregard shared a lesson from her mom for the series:

If everyone else jumped off of a bridge, would you? My mother drove those words into my head like a mantra. During my adolescence when I tried desperately to fit in, I heard them every day. Although my mother complained that her advice went in one ear and out the other (another phrase she liked to use), I did listen. Her wisdom has become a cornerstone on how I view the world today.

When I was 44, I received a diagnosis of breast cancer. Given that I had no family history of the disease, ate a healthy diet and exercised regularly, I could not understand why this happened to me. Within a few weeks of my diagnosis, I learned of other young women in my neighborhood that had also been told they had breast cancer during the past year.  We had all lived in our neighborhood for at least 16 years at that time. We also lived 1/2 mile from the Tower Chemical Superfund site where DDT and other toxic chemicals had polluted our environment.

I began questioning if our proximity to the waste site had caused our cancer. In search of an answer to my question, I reached out to the Florida Department of Health, the Florida Environmental Protection Agency and the EPA. Although none of the government agencies I contacted would admit that Tower Chemical had caused our cancer, the EPA did commence cleanup of the Tower site.

After learning what I could about toxic chemicals, I came to the realization that pollution in our environment affects more than just my neighbors and myself. It is a crisis that is affecting all of us. No matter where we live, we eat food, drink water and breathe air that is likely to be contaminated with toxic chemicals--and these chemicals are often hidden ingredients in every day products, like toys, cookware, shower curtains, even food containers. Mounting scientific evidence is linking the chemicals in our environment to breast cancer and a host of other diseases.

Our current chemical laws are outdated. The Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) was passed in 1976.  Of the over 84,000 chemicals on the market today, the EPA has required testing on only a few hundred of them. Only 5 chemicals have been restricted since TSCA went into effect. The chemical industry would have us believe all these chemicals are safe, but the growing scientific evidence suggests otherwise.

The Safe Chemicals Act (S. 847) was introduced by Sen. Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey in April of 2011.  The legislation addresses many of TSCA’s breakdowns. S. 847 will require a chemical to be proven safe for all people before it can be sold, require chemical companies to supply health risk information about their products to the EPA and consumers, setup a prioritization system for chemical testing and action that gives the highest priority to chemicals that are persistent, bio-accumulative and toxic and will encourage development of safer chemicals.

It is time for our government to enact the Safe Chemicals Act to protect us from the toxic chemicals that lurk in our environment. Chemical companies are attempting to turn the clock back and erase the modern science that is reflected in this bill. I am not willing to jump off a bridge with the chemical companies leading the way. Are you?

Joey Beauregard lives in Clermont, Florida and was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 44 after living near a toxic waste site for 16 years. In 2010 Joey participated in the Breast Cancer Fund's Climb Against the Odds, climbing Mt. Shasta to raise awareness and funds to eliminate toxic chemicals in our environment. She hopes for a day when sound laws are put in place to keep all of us safe from toxic chemicals in our environment.

Irvine teacher's uphill battle against breast cancer (Orange County Register, 4/20/2012)

Another great article about a member of this year's Climb Against the Odds team!

Lori Fallace, a teacher and breast cancer survivor, was featured in the Orange County Register and describes her personal drive to climb Mt. Shasta and educate others about breast cancer prevention.

Fallace was always a healthy woman. She exercises and eats well, and has had a lifelong fascination with the human body – she wrote the middle and high school health curriculum for the district.

So when she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2008 with no family history and none of the indicator genes, she questioned why.

The light bulb came on when she discovered the link between breast cancer and the environment, and the preventive measures that can be taken to avoid what her integrative medicine doctor called the "perfect toxic milieu" she created in her body.

After reading the Breast Cancer Fund's report on the link between chemicals in everyday environments and breast cancer, the 54-year old Fallace saw the big picture.

"I've become sharply aware of what I touch, breathe, and eat," said Fallace, a speaker for the fund. "There are things we can do that are within our control." (Read complete article.)

Meet Lori and her team members, and learn more about Climb Against the Odds this June.

Prevention Is Power: A different road

We've known Ann Maechtlen since 2008, the first time she signed up for Climb Against the Odds. She's one of those people who immediately, intuitively understands the Breast Cancer Fund's environmental perspective on the disease, largely because of her own cancer diagnoses. Recently interviewed by the Sacramento Bee for an article about the proliferation of pink during October, Ann shares with us here her own perspective on prevention:

Greetings from Missoula, Montana! The fall colors are beautiful and the air is crisp. I get a little sad this time every year as I say goodbye to long warm days full of friends and fun adventures outdoors and spend more time indoors with shorter colder days. My sadness lifts when the snow starts falling and I can go nordic skiing or snowshoeing.

It’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month, also the anniversary of my breast cancer diagnosis (five years) and 29 1/2 years since my Hodgkin's diagnosis. At age 22 I had cancer—back when I didn't know anyone who had ever had cancer!

Hodgkin's was a very scary disease for me, and people were afraid it was contagious. In 1982 there was no Internet, no support groups and no cancer groups waiting to help, so I was on my own. The public library was my new best friend. The first book I picked up was called, “First You Cry”—how true!

I had a doctor who believed my cancer was caused by exposure to chemicals on my family’s ranch in Southern California. That doctor planted that seed, which took many years to germinate. I found myself reading labels more and avoiding products with ingredients I couldn’t pronounce in my quest for good health.

I also noticed more and more chemicals in cosmetics and cleaners and in trying to avoid them I have found it easier to make my own.

After my breast cancer diagnosis I realized I needed to make big changes to really get healthy and get past cancer. I quit drinking alcohol, changed some other habits and did a lot of emotional healing. After completing nine months of chemotherapy I was really happy just to be alive, and I needed to celebrate!

Then the Breast Cancer Fund came into my life and I learned about the Climb Against the Odds. I knew I had to climb the mountain! I climbed Mt. Shasta in 2008, nine months after I finished chemo. I climbed again this year, thinking maybe it would be easier. No, it was still hard!

I was—and still am—thrilled that the Breast Cancer Fund is looking at prevention rather than finding a cure. Cancer has become big business…too big. I have seen enough lives torn apart and cut short from this disease; I want to see it disappear, at least back to the levels found before the 1980s.

I would like to empower people with real information and real choices in their lives to stay healthy. I see cancer groups working to support cancer patients, which is good, but how about going down a different road of no cancer?

Pink Inc. has many starting to see red (Sacramento Bee, 10/23/2011)

Pink is big in October, Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and this year is no exception. But some survivors, like two-time Climb Against the Odds team member Ann Maechtlen, are looking for something more, reports the Sacramento Bee:

Ann Maechtlen, formerly of Redding, is one who has lost faith in the bigger organizations. Years before she was diagnosed with breast cancer, she joined in walkathons like the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life to honor cancer survivors. "It was a great thing, especially in the days when people couldn't even talk about the disease," Maechtlen says.

Now, she avoids the parade of pink walkers and product promotions. She feels they trumpet a superficial notion of "awareness," even if some groups do good things with the money raised and promote great solidarity among survivors and families.

"It tugs at your heartstrings, but I can't get behind it anymore," she says. "For the most part, everyone is perpetuating the Big Business of cancer."

For survivors of breast cancer and their families, it can be very healing to contribute to group activities. After nine grueling months of chemotherapy, Maechtlen joined an organized hike to the summit of Mount Shasta, up 14,179 feet, which raised about $13,000 for the Breast Cancer Fund, a charity she believes in because of its focus on prevention and environmental-factor research. (Read complete article.)

Prevention Is Power: A new path

Breast cancer survivor Betsy Ogden climbed Mt. Shasta with the Breast Cancer Fund's Climb Against the Odds 2011 team, and in doing so found a journey of her own choosing post-cancer. Read her reflections on cancer, mountains and prevention in today's blog, part of our October Prevention Is Power campaign. Thank you, Betsy!

Knowledge. Power. Strength. Change. This is what prevention means to me.

On a September Sunday in 2009, I completed my first-ever solo summit of Mt. Moosilauke, one of New Hampshire’s 48 4,000-foot mountains. It was a beautiful, crisp fall day and I felt strong and proud, and excited about my new-found love of hiking.

Three days later, following a routine mammogram, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I was a strong, healthy, active physical therapist and Pilates practitioner and had no family history of the disease.

And so began what I now call my “forced march,” a journey not of my choosing, into the world of breast cancer diagnosis, treatment and remission.

Over the next few months I often felt powerless, sometimes frightened. My choices in life revolved around treatment options, recurrence rates and outcome statistics. My business struggled as the fatigue of treatment took its toll. Finally treatment ended and I became a survivor, and started to figure out my new life, co-existing with the reality of cancer ever-present.

Through all of this I came to understand that my cancer’s origin was likely somewhere in the environment. And on a very personal level, I knew that I needed and wanted to do something to reclaim my life’s journey, the journey cancer had hijacked.

I needed a mountain to climb, literally, and in October 2010 I joined the Breast Cancer Fund’s Climb Against the Odds 2011 team. As I look back, I see how much personal strength I drew from the months of fundraising and training for the climb. I pushed myself to physical limits and raised thousands of dollars from supporters. Each step along the way, I was encouraged by the amazing staff of the Breast Cancer Fund.

And finally, I climbed Mt. Shasta in June 2011 along with 33 other survivors and supporters. I did not reclaim my life’s journey on Shasta. Rather, I started on a whole new path, where powerlessness and fear in the face of the disease have no place.

The Breast Cancer Fund has shown me that we can and must face the disease head-on. We work so that others never have to feel the powerlessness of diagnosis, the fear of treatment and the uncertainty of the future.

I believe that prevention is the only acceptable future for breast cancer. Using solid scientific inquiry to identify environmental causes of the disease, we have knowledge. And with that knowledge and the leadership of the Breast Cancer Fund, we have the power and strength to change the course of this disease. We will and must educate and advocate so that young women, women of color, all of us at risk of environmental exposure will not have to fear what we do not know or understand.
 
I have climbed mountains since the Breast Cancer Fund's Climb Against the Odds 2011, and I hope to climb many more. I take every opportunity I can to speak of the good work of the organization and I try to make my own small world safer and less toxic for my loved ones and me.

Each of us must do what we can, where we can. And, in the end, that will be enough. And I know that someday, in the not too distant future, our children and grandchildren will live in a world where breast cancer is, very simply, prevented. 

Prevention Is Power: Through treatment, up mountains and toward a healthy future

Shiera Brady Henderson climbed Mt. Shasta this June with the Breast Cancer Fund's 2011 Climb Against the Odds team. Shiera faced the mountain with immense strength, and today, as part of our October Prevention Is Power campaign, we're happy to share with you her reflections on the power of prevention:

The feeling of ultimate power swept over me as I took the final step to reach the 14,000-foot summit of Mt. Shasta. The thin air and grueling climb that began at 2 a.m. makes breathing difficult. Yet, as I stand roped together with my four fellow climbers on top of the world, I exhale with great pride and gratitude. On this 10th anniversary of being a breast cancer survivor, I celebrate not just a milestone, but also the return of once again being in charge of my life. 

That sense of power drains from your body when you are diagnosed with breast cancer—malignant cells destroying not only your breast tissue but also your confidence and self-esteem buried deep inside your heart. How does a 39-year-old healthy mom with no family history get breast cancer? What did I do wrong? Am I going to die?

I was diagnosed with aggressive invasive ductal carcinoma. No warning, no symptoms, just confirmation that this awful disease was already leaching into my lymphatic system. I had discovered a little bump during a self-exam and although that turned out to be a cyst, the mammogram showed those suspicious-looking spots on the other breast. Suddenly, a regimen of surgery, chemotherapy and radiation controlled my life. I was no longer in charge of potty-training my two-year-old; my only job was to win the cancer battle.

How does this happen? Why does our treatment for breast cancer include terms like toxins and radiation—the very things we believe cause cancer?  Why is everyone working on a cure? Don’t we want to know why more and more of us are getting breast cancer in the first place?

Although I realized the obvious value in finding the perfect cure, I knew in my heart that the real problem lied in the cause. I started paying more attention to what I ate, the ingredients in those foods, and most importantly, what I fed my children. I had an 8-year-old daughter who now had a family history of breast cancer. I needed to do all I could to prevent cancer from being a part of her life.

Desperate to find peace and healing and to restore my health, I developed a love for the outdoors and discovered the cathartic power of hiking. I started with day hikes in the hills behind my house; soon the trails became longer and the mountains higher. The physical accomplishment of climbing tall mountains slowly began rebuilding my self-confidence. 

Along the way, I discovered the work of the Breast Cancer Fund. I knew instantly I had found the perfect partner when I learned they advocate for the elimination of preventable causes of breast cancer and they build awareness by hiking and climbing tall mountains! Detection is critical—a self-exam and mammogram undoubtedly saved my life. Ultimately, however, I want to know what caused my breast cancer. I have learned so much from this great organization that works tirelessly to educate us and to demand better public policy.

That glorious day of rediscovering myself on the Breast Cancer Fund’s Climb Against the Odds lives vividly in my mind today. It is a constant reminder of the power we have to push forward on hard days during chemotherapy, up precipitous mountains, and in our unrelenting efforts to prevent breast cancer.