Learn How Your Support Changes Lives
Support of Aurora Health Care’s Pink Possible campaign every October (formerly Think Pink) provides women the opportunity for early detection, education and looking beyond breast cancer and their treatments. Funding from Pink Possible offers a variety of programs and guidance to women provided by compassionate caregivers who look to positively influence each woman's life.
Thanks to the gracious support from donors to the Aurora Health Care Foundation, Pink Possible is already making an impact. Together, these gifts are offering women a chance to grow stronger physically, emotionally and mentally following a breast cancer diagnosis.
Please consider supporting Pink Possible with a secure online donation.
Detection and Education
After losing her mother to breast cancer, FM106’s Karen Dalessandro decided to partner with Aurora to prevent the loss of someone else's mother or daughter. Through this collaboration, Check Ups for Chicks was created to help all women in southeast Wisconsin obtain a needed mammogram. This program gives underinsured and uninsured women an opportunity to receive a mammogram. Pink Possible donations have been used to aid this program, providing nearly 70 mammograms since the program started.
For a number of patients, the detection of breast cancer and understanding the diagnosis and treatment can be difficult to comprehend. What does this mean to me? My family? What is my future prognosis? What can I expect? These are just a few of the questions that can suddenly take on new proportions during the initial diagnoses of “you have breast cancer.”
Aurora is committed to providing women with as many resources as possible to help them make informed decisions about their health and answer that initial outpouring of questions and concerns. Each and every woman who is diagnosed with breast cancer receives the book Be a Survivor: Your Guide to Breast Cancer Treatment. Pink Possible funds allows for all newly diagnosed women to receive this user-friendly, comprehensive resource book. It follows the stages of treatment and recovery, offering detailed illustrations, pictures and checklists of possible questions to ask doctors. Inspirational quotes and photos from survivors are featured on nearly every page for additional encouragement.
Looking Forward
Completing a treatment is not the end of the cancer experience for breast cancer survivors. It marks a beginning of the ongoing journey of survivorship. The goals of a cancer survivorship program are to provide education, guidance and empower survivors to make informed decisions regarding their health and quality of life. Aurora Health Care understands that survivors still need assistance once their treatments are completed.
With the goal to provide education, guidance and empowerment, a customized survivorship care plan is now available for each breast cancer patient as she completes her treatment. The survivorship plan meets the needs of women as they look forward to the future and address their on-going needs.
Pink Possible funds provide scholarships for women to attend two physical fitness programs developed for breast cancer survivors -- Movin’ and Groovin’ and Living Well. These two programs focus on weight loss and conditioning to prevent bone loss. Additionally, a nutrition program focused on basic nutrition, antioxidants and supplements are offered to patients. During each session, a dietitian is available to assist with individual goal setting and answer questions.
There is greater opportunity to develop survivorship plans due to research advancements in treating breast cancer. However, many patients are unable to enroll in clinical trials due to concerns that insurance won’t cover the costs of research intervention. Pink Possible has helped remove that obstacle of research participation. It is one more way for a greater number of patients to participate in breast cancer research.
Team Phoenix Completes Danskin Triathlon
One aspect many women need to include in their survivorship plan is how to regain their physical fitness. Breast cancer survivors can struggle with weight gain, depression and decreased stamina. Pink Possible allowed for the development of a new initiative to address these challenges – the end result being successful completion of the Danskin Triathlon. The triathlon consisted of a half-mile swim, 12 mile bike and 3.1 mile run.
The various elements of a triathlon - swimming, biking and running – can be correlated to a patient’s breast cancer treatment - surgery, chemotherapy and radiation. The initial treatment, often surgery, represents the swim portion. The second phase would be chemotherapy in treatment and the bike course in the triathlon. Finally, there is radiation, which equates to the run portion of the triathlon.
Utilizing a partnership with Nimble Training, Aurora offered 12 weeks of post cancer treatment training for a group of survivors to start being active and gaining confidence. The participants met twice weekly for two hour sessions beginning with strength and resistance training, followed by triathlon training focused on swimming, cycling and running.
There were 13 women on Team Phoenix who crossed the finish line with the support of their families, friends, coaches and each other. The entire process provided benefits such as focused training, improved physical health and weight loss. In addition, the camaraderie of working with a team of women with similar experiences fulfilled emotional needs and the desire to continue moving forward.