MURFREESBORO — With
everyone from local fundraisers to National Football League players decked out
in pink during Breast Cancer Awareness Month, a very special event at MTSU will
enable everyone to peek behind the pink.
“The Pink Out,” a public forum about breast cancer featuring
a survivor, a surgeon and an exercise specialist, is slated for 7 to 8:30 p.m.
Thursday, Oct. 22, in Room N109 of MTSU’s the Cason-Kennedy Nursing Building.
This event is free and open to the public. A searchable
campus parking map is available at http://tinyurl.com/MTSUParking2015-16.
Cary Greenwood, an assistant professor in the MTSU School of
Journalism, will go public for the first time with her personal story of
discovering and surviving a tumor in her left breast.
“That isn’t something that I shared with a lot of people
because, frankly, I had a lot to do and I needed to focus,” said Greenwood.
However, Ladarius Fitzgerald, a senior from Memphis,
Tennessee, majoring in exercise science and vice president of Alpha Phi Alpha’s
Kappa Xi chapter, convinced her to come forward because his fraternity wanted
to tackle the issue.
“They hear about it,” Fitzgerald said of general student
awareness. “They see people wear pink on TV when October rolls around. They
really don’t know the true meaning. They really don’t know the causes. They
really don’t know what to look for.”
The fraternity also will sponsor two breast cancer
information tables from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 20, in the Keathley
University Center lobby, and from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 27, in the
Student Union lobby.
“My thought process was, if this could help someone, and if
this is going to start additional awareness through an organization that is
going to continue to promote it, it’s the right thing to do,” Greenwood said.
Joining Greenwood on the panel will be Dr. James Taylor
Carter, a surgeon with Murfreesboro Medical Clinic, and Caleb Paschall,
adaptive recreation and exercise coordinator at MTSU’s Campus Recreation
Center. Paschall worked with Greenwood on changing her weightlifting protocol
following her lumpectomy and lymph node removal in May of this year.
“For cancer survivors, our training style allows … enough
flexibility to restore function that may have
been lost through treatment, rebuilding strength after chemo or surgery,
for instance, as well as continue to work toward more traditional goals like
weight loss or improved muscle tone,” said Paschall.
“Breast cancer is one
of the most fear-inducing diagnoses in a woman’s life and can occur at almost
any time in her adult life,” said Carter. “Modern therapies can often turn the
tide in the fight for a cure.”
Fitzgerald said he was inspired not only by his great-aunt’s
death due to breast cancer two years ago, but also by the ordeal of the late
ESPN sportscaster Stuart Scott, who died Jan. 4, 2015, of colon cancer at the
age of 49.
“He didn’t let cancer determine how he lived his life,”
Fitzgerald said. “He fought it until God called him home.”
Scott, who was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha, received the
Jimmy V Award at the ESPY Awards July 16, 2014, for his battle with cancer. In
his acceptance speech, Scott said, “You beat cancer by how you live, why you
live and in the manner in which you live.”
The MTSU forum will include a period for audience questions,
answers and comments. Attendees are encouraged to wear pink to show support.
For more information, contact Fitzgerald at ljf2s@mtmail.mtsu.edu.
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