Sauntee Carter holds a tissue expander while other members of Girls Inc. ask questions about breast cancer awareness and prevention during a seminar put on by the Mary Ellen Locher Foundation's "Mel's Club" while at the Brainerd United Methodist Church on Wednesday.Breast cancer can strike at any age.
But more than two dozen teenagers at the Girls Inc. fall break camp will be better prepared to detect and cope with the disease after a presentation Wednesday by the MaryEllen Locher Foundation.
Foundation administrator Cindy Pare calls her presentation Mel's Club after Locher, a veteran co-anchor for WTVC News Channel 9 who died of the disease in 2005.
The roomful of girls sat listening in a sunny room at Brainerd United Methodist Church to hear Pare's presentation, including information about how and when to give themselves a breast self-examination. Early detection means early treatment and a better outlook for their future, Pare said.
Each year about 70,000 women and men ages 15 to 39 are diagnosed with breast cancer, Pare said. She said she first encountered the disease when her best friend discovered a lump in her breast while breast-feeding her 6-month-old child. Her friend was 31 when she was diagnosed and died at 35.
Women in the United States have a 1-in-8 chance of being diagnosed with the disease. Pare counted off the girls and had every eighth one stand to illustrate the statistic. Then she told them stories she saw online of girls as young as 10 and 14 who had breast cancer and had to get mastectomies.
Tonya Gentry, executive director of the nonprofit Breast Cancer Support Services, gave a first-person account of what it's like to survive the disease.
Because breast cancer ran in her family, Gentry started getting mammograms at age 30. When she was 40, doctors found a lump in her breast. She eventually had the breast removed and reconstructed.
"In clothes, I look normal. I have some scars," she said.
Lauryn Patterson's hand shot up again and again to ask questions about the women's presentation: Why does a woman with breast cancer lose her hair? How long does she stay sick from chemotherapy?
Some girls in the group said they had family members who had been diagnosed with breast cancer.
Pare used a daisy wheel to show girls how to do self-exams on their breast and said if they feel something unnatural, get it checked out.
There's nothing sexual or nasty about breast self-exams, she said.
"It's as natural," she said, "as brushing your teeth."
Cindy Pare is married to Times Free Press Deputy Business Editor Mike Pare.
Contact staff writer Yolanda Putman at yputman@timesfreepress.com or 757-6431.