Friday, December 1, 2006

This is worth repeating

My friend Peggy, who has been battling ovarian cancer for 3 1/2 years, has asked that I get the word about this effort out to all my internet quilting friends. Please copy this and pass it along to all the members of your guilds and all your quilting friends. Breast cancer fund raising makes the biggest headlines, and many groups raise a huge amount of money each year for research. Ovarian cancer is usually much more deadly, yet far less attention is paid to this disease and far less money is raised. Ovarian cancer will be conquered so much faster if we can raise it to the same public attention that breast cancer now receives. Of you've never been touched in some way by this disease you are very lucky. So I'm repeating a post I first wrote on June 14th.

For all the women you love . . .

How many of you have been touched in some way by ovarian cancer? I know at least one or two of you have fought this silent but deadly killer yourself. What about your mothers, sisters, daughters and friends? My dear friend Peggy in Tangled Threads has been fighting this disease for almost three years.

Did you know there is something "quilty" you can do to help? Blank Fabrics, a manufacturer of quilting fabrics, is helping raise money for Ovarian Cancer research. I hadn't heard of Blank Fabrics until Peggy told the Threads about this last fall.

The company makes beautiful, colorful fabrics for quilters. For every 12" finished (12 1/2" unfinished) quilt block sent to them they will donate $1 for ovarian cancer research. At least half the fabrics in each block must be Blank fabrics, with the other fabrics being anything you want to use from your stash. The blocks are being made into Inspiration Quilts, which will be auctioned to raise even more money for research. Each Inspiration Quilt is dedicated to a particular quilter who is battling ovarian cancer; names to be considered are submitted by friends. The first quilt is totally finished, and the second quilt is at the quilter now. Blocks are being collected for the third quilt, which will be dedicated to my friend Peggy. If you go to their website you can read the stories of the women to whom the first two quilts were dedicated. You can see pictures of the "virtual quilts". Clicking on each of the individual blocks will give you a close-up of the block and a picture of the maker of the block. There is also a link for finding a store in your area that sells Blank Fabrics. You may already have some in your stash and not know it.I'm posting this in the hope that you will help spread the word about this effort, and maybe even send in some blocks yourself. Ovarian cancer is very deadly because there is no infallible way to test for it, and by the time the victim begins to feel pain the cancer is almost always too far advanced to cure. The symbol for the fight is a ribbon similar to the breast cancer ribbon in teal instead of pink.I encourage you to do this yourself or for the special women in your life.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Patti, tell Peggy to hang in there. My mom almost died a few times from Ovarian Cancer (they called us into the hospital saying she wasn't going to make it). Anyway she is now an Ovarian Cancer survivor of 17 years! And cancer free!

Anonymous said...

You are so right that some types of cancer do not have the media attention that others get. It take someone to start a movement and publicize the effort and that takes time. I am so happy that I had a hysterectomy years ago and will never have to worry about this type of cancer at least. Hope your friends keeps up the good fight!

Anonymous said...

Thank you Patti. I hope that many of the people who happen onto your Blog will visit the Blankquilting.com website and also see the opportunities that they offer for all size quilting groups along with helping the cause by sending in a block.
Another message for your quilting ladies would be to ask their physician for a CA 125 blood test each year - they might say that it gives false positives but I would have rather had a false positive and looked into the problem rather than what I got which is stage 4 Ovanian Cancer. Take care of your health and don't be afraid to ask.
Your Friend Peggy

Anonymous said...

Ovarian cancer is very scary because of the lack of symptoms but I don't think rountine CA125 screening for ovarian cancer is the standard of care and it's more typically used to monitor the effectiveness of treatment.

I was lucky that the ovarian tumor I had removed a couple years ago was benign and in the end I just had them take both ovaries too. Between a family history of breast cancer and a year long battle with multiple cysts followed by the tumor I'd had enough.

I'm so sorry that your friend is struggling with this disease and agree absolutely that raising awareness is key in the fight.

I think in part the attention breast cancer gets is due to a much higher incidence and we all seem to have family members or friends affected by it. Ovarian cancer while more deadly - due to late diagnsis in many cases - has a much lower incidence. Good for you for focusing attention on it.

Anonymous said...

» International Trial Of Novel Breast Cancer Drug
14/12/06 07:03 from Breast cancer blog from medicineworld.org
-------------------------------------------------------------
A clinical trial of a new targeted breast cancer drug, led by
physicians at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Cancer
Center, has begun enrolling patients. The TEACH (Tykerb
Evaluation After CHemotherapy) trial will investigate ...


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