Some accounting for you all. Sorry my "table" isn't prettier, but I can't get html to work.
Costs:
Pink Ribbon registration with course material and shipping...$935.90
Pink Ribbon stickers to put onto various materials......................10.00
Remaining budget to cover travel and food during training
...and other miscellaneous costs..................................................254.10
Total budget......................................................................................$1,200
Contributions:
Price reduction from the Pink Ribbon Program developer............(100.00)
Friend's pledges..............................................................................50.00
Total to fundraise...........................................................................$1,050
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Original Post
Dear Friends,
Some of you are aware of my breast cancer diagnosis and treatment that started five years ago. Only some of you are aware that I live with chronic pain as a result.
Part of my pain is in my chest and right arm, the combined result of the mastectomy, radiation, infections, and reconstruction. I will never be free of that pain, but I can reduce it by daily stretching and massage of the area.
I want to bring the Pink Ribbon Program to my area. It's a long story of how I got to this place on my cancer journey: months of diagnostics (doctor visits, X-Rays, and MRIs), chiropractic adjustments, physical therapy, treatment by a physiatrist (a medical doctor specializing in pain management and rehabilitation), and attempts at regular exercise at my YMCA and my local Wellness Community.
A common condition that women with mastectomies and radiation encounter is frozen shoulder. I had it, I got therapy for it, but I have to continue daily exercises or it will come back. That is because the therapy cannot "fix" the skin and muscle damage of the cancer treatments. It can simply move me to a point where I can tolerate daily exercises to ward off future occurrences.
And the exercises I have to do are not "general" exercises. Certainly, the cardio sessions in the pool and yoga and pilates help. A lot. But I must do "specialized" exercises that target the areas of my body that "freeze up."
I am not the only one. This is common among breast cancer survivors who had mastectomies or radiation. Those treatments damaged our bodies.
Thanks to targeted therapies, women and men with breast cancer are surviving longer. But with longer life comes late effects from the treatments. The healthcare community has only recently come to recognize those effects. Now it is time to focus on treating those effects. Or at least to bring the knowledge that does exist about treating those effects to a broader group of survivors.
And it is my goal to spread that knowledge in my local community: Wilmington, Delaware, and surrounding areas.
I have joined with Karen Feeney, my chiropractor and a personal trainer at my local YMCA, and Fa Lane Fields, a survivor with late effects much worse than mine who is starting up a cancer support group at the same Y, to bring the Pink Ribbon Program to our area. We want to bring the knowledge of that Program into our community, especially into the Y, to move breast cancer survivors toward wellness.
Thus, we have created Moving Toward Wellness. We have started a Facebook group that all are welcome to join. We hope that area breast cancer survivors and those concerned about breast cancer survivors will join the group to follow our efforts and to spread knowledge about wellness opportunities.
I have created a poster about our effort to fundraise for the Pink Ribbon Program training. I ask you, my Facebook friends, those who read my Blog, and others that I contact with the link to this post, to help me with my goal by contributing. Information about donating by PayPal or check are in the poster. If you can spare even $5, that will get us on our way. Many hands make small work.
Thank you for reading my appeal.
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