Let’s Pink Out! health fair returns Oct. 19
It’s billed as a celebration of life, dancing and hugs for the participants.
But the serious undertone of Let’s Pink Out! is about fighting fear and complacency, certainly death.
Let’s Pink Out! sponsors, donors and hugging-booth proceeds cover the costs of mammograms for the uninsured. An Oct. 19 event at the Sanibel firehouse on Palm Ridge features a mobile coach with technicians and equipment to screen men and women for breast cancer. October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and catching signs early is the best way to fight the disease, medical officials and event sponsors warn.
The mammogram bus is provided by the Radiology Regional Center in Fort Myers. Costs for the uninsured at the event are picked up by Let’s Pink Out! sponsors. Mammograms on Oct. 19 are also offered to the insured, many with little cost. The ultimate cost to those who can afford it is $150.
The one-day event also features a health fair; this year hugs for a donation and other fun things to raise money, awareness and support are available. Islander merchants are invested with promotions, gifts and emotional reinforcement.
In its third year, Let’s Pink Out! was founded by Mary Bondurant, an island Realtor and cancer survivor. Enduring the fear and pain of cancer is difficult enough, she said. Throw in lack of insurance to cover the staggering price tag for diagnosis and treatment, and the misery is doubled, she said.
“When I was recovering, the community reached out to me,” Bondurant said, “and this is my way of giving back.”
Bondurant was cruising along a couple of years ago, happy and successful. And then a blood test in 2010 warranted further examination, later a biopsy. The diagnosis was breast cancer. At an Orlando real estate conference, she took the doctor’s call on a cell phone. The world around her whited out, she said.
“You hear the words ‘you have cancer,’ and you go into shock,” she said. “Everything is blocked out. But I decided I was going to live, to put on my boxing gloves and go down flinging.”
What Bondurant came to understand is that early detection is a key to surviving cancer, or any type of disease, she said. She learned this lesson observing others who, for any number of reasons, couldn’t or didn’t visit a doctor. Cost and fear are chief excuses to put off an examination, she said, which seems counter-intuitive. In Bondurant’s case, an annual checkup helped in her survival. Even then she skipped a couple of years before making an appointment. She had no indications of having cancer. She’s also adopted, with no family history to trace, she said. Her parents in Minnesota raised three children, each from different families in her native Ireland. Health records simply didn’t exist.
Each year some 232,000 new cases of breast cancer are diagnosed, with 40,000 deaths. Only lung cancer strikes harder.
And it’s not just women who are victimized: Nearly 2,400 men are diagnosed annually with breast cancer, with some 450 dying, according to the American Cancer Society.
The idea for Let’s Pink Out! was yielded in conversations between Bondurant and a Sanibel Fire Rescue Chief Danny Duncan, who suggested an event to help bring awareness, she said. Firefighters were fitted out with pink shirts to help support the event. Spa, acupuncture, therapy, refreshments, cuisine, other fun activities and giveaways are planned. The event runs from noon-3 p.m. Visitors are also encouraged to bring foodstuffs to benefit FISH of Sanibel. Sponsorships are available, and $50 hugs will help cover the costs of screenings.
Sponsors for the event haven’t been tough to find. The hard part is getting islanders to overcome fears, Bondurant said, eliminating the cost as a factor.
“Mary asked for business to get involved, and that’s what we’re doing,” said Alison Dry, owner of Cip’s Place, a popular Sanibel restaurant. “Are we excited? Absolutely.”
Bondurant said her event is different, if only in spirit.
“There are runs and walks” to raise funding for cancer treatments and research, she said. “We decided that nobody dances and celebrates. This is about the joyousness of finding the strengths in yourself (you) didn’t know you had.”