MISSOULA — A month-long campaign to paint the town in pink in support of breast cancer awareness is fully underway in Missoula.
"We make a big effort to raise awareness of breast cancer during October," Mick Faherty, the development manager of Cancer Support Community, said.
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From store signs to screening resources, Pink Missoula's (PNKMSO) purpose is to not only support, but educate. It's all for a good reason.
“It's kind of in your face, which is great," Jenny McGuinn, Advanced Imaging's clinical manager, said. "Reminds people, 'Oh yeah, I do need to go get my mammogram,' or 'Yeah, I should be thinking about my neighbor that's having treatment' or, you know, just bring support throughout the community.”
Advanced Imaging is partnering with Cancer Support Community for the campaign. It's a call on local businesses to show their support to those affected by cancer.
“I am delivering to all of our participating businesses a pink bag, and in that pink bag, some information about some of our participants, some of the doctors involved with like Advanced Imaging, and also a QR code that has a tremendous amount of information on the different resources and things that we can help people with that are going through cancer," Faherty explained.
Pink banners around town and signs at storefronts mean the business is participating in PNKMSO.
Since movement is medicine, VRTX Fitness has joined the campaign to show their handful of members undergoing breast cancer treatments that they are not alone.
“Just being in the gym really helps them," Derrek Nazelrod, VRTX's CEO, said. "The movement, the strength training."
Many establishments have some kind of offer for PNKMSO. For VRTX, that means two weeks of sign-up fees being donated straight to Cancer Support Community.
"The sad thing about cancer is everyone has known somebody that has passed from cancer or is currently battling cancer," Nazelrod added.
Healthy individuals, however, can still check in with their provider. Dr. Matthew Curtis, a radiologist with Advanced Imaging, strongly advises people do just that.
“Part of the challenge is figuring out whether you are a high risk patient or not," he said.
Advanced Imaging provides advanced screening and breast imaging with a goal of early detection.
“Before you're having bloody nipple discharge, before the breast is shrinking all of a sudden," Dr. Curtis said. "Our whole goal is to find it when it's small and when it's still curable."
That's also the goal of PNKMSO.
"And understanding that the whole community is behind them and supporting them, that can be really helpful when during their cancer journey," Faherty told MTN.
While the month raises awareness for management and resources, October also comes with many pink-filled activities for Missoulians too.
One of them is Cancer Support Community's "Pink Party" tradition set for Oct. 28. Anyone can participate. You can visit Cancer Support Community's website or view their Facebook page for more information.
