Fix-It and Forget-It Pink Cookbook (7 page)

My favorite part of the Walks is the Opening Ceremony. It's emotionally intense. It has an almost spiritual atmosphere for me. I find the Walks to be a kind of metaphor for having been diagnosed with breast cancer. It's dark (the Opening Ceremony happens before sunrise); we're all a little worried about making it through to the end. Each of us feels alone, and yet we know, too, that we're part of a group. We're each filled with expectations, with worry, with a sense of opportunity. And then you find strengths—and weaknesses—within yourself that you didn't know you had as you move along in the Walk.

I have a wife and three daughters. Ivanna Beat Breast Cancer is for them and for the great spirits, living and gone, with whom I've shared the road on the Walks and others who each day await the Avon Pink Ribbon Delivery Service of Food & Friends.

“Most of the women we serve live in families. Most have children, but they may be single moms. So we provide food for their families, too.”

Craig Shniderman, (right) at the Washington D.C. Walk as “Ivanna Beat Breast Cancer.”

Dr. Sheryl G.A. Gabram: Researcher

Dr. Sheryl G.A. Gabram is Surgeon-in-Chief at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia and Professor of Surgery at Emory University School of Medicine. She is Deputy Director of the George Cancer Center for Excellence and Director of the Avon Comprehensive Breast Center, both at Grady.

Makes 4-6 servings • Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cooking Time: 5½-6 hours • Ideal Slow-Cooker Size: 4-qt.

1 medium onion, chopped

2 ribs celery, diced

1 carrot, diced

3 cloves garlic, minced

2 15-oz. cans Great Northern beans, rinsed and drained

1 cup water

1 cup frozen or canned corn

6-oz. can tomato paste

4-oz. can diced mild green chilies, undrained

1 Tbsp. chili powder

2 tsp. dried oregano leaves

1 tsp. salt

1. Combine all ingredients in slow cooker.
   
2. Cover. Cook on Low 5½-6 hours, or until vegetables are as tender as you like them.
   

“I'm a pescatarian who also loves vegetables!”

RESEARCHER

In our Cancer Center, 90% of the women come alone to hear the results of their needle biopsy. If they are diagnosed with cancer, we ask if they would like a Personal Navigator to assist them in knowing what to do next. The great majority choose to have this companionship and support.

The clinic Navigators are breast cancer survivors. They are living testimonies that you can have hope and fight this disease. We are grateful to the Avon Foundation for funding the Navigator program.

We see 150-170 newly diagnosed cancer patients each year. Ninety percent are African American women who ordinarily wouldn't have access to high quality care because of poverty and little or no insurance. We offer a tailored ­personal plan for each patient whom we treat.

Dr. Gabram (right) meets with a patient.

Every Monday afternoon at our Cancer Center, we hold a multi-disciplinary conference, during which the attendees—medical, surgical, and radiation oncologists, radiologists, pathologists, social workers, nurses, clinic navigators, and researchers—discuss and plan for each patient's care. We don't want to lose any patient because of fear, and that can happen because the patient doesn't know how to manage her diagnosis on top of everything else that is going on in her life.

We try to help these women understand all of the options available to them. Part of my research is making sure that we offer good quality care consistently and to all. We want to make sure that women understand and accept
all
of the treatments recommended to them.

The Avon Foundation provides grant funding for our Community Education Outreach Initiative. This program funds the clinic Navigators, along with lay navigators, who go out into the community and teach what mammography is and how to do breast self-examinations.

We also have a pilot project testing the role of survivorship navigators. After a woman completes all active therapies, she is ready for help in knowing how to go on living with her history of having had cancer. Does she need physical therapy to overcome limitations after surgical and radiation therapy? What side-effects might she have because of the drugs, and how does she manage those? What is an ideal diet? What kinds of exercise are especially beneficial? This program helps with all of that.

I want to make a difference to all women, especially to those who don't have the means or the wherewithal to pay for diagnosis or treatment. To see the survivors every week in clinic is really fulfilling work.

“Every week my patients teach me lessons of courage, and their experiences put life in perspective for me. I am so rewarded by serving this community.”

Dr. Gabram (left) in her role as a researcher.

Lillie D. Shockney: Nurse Navigator, and Survivor

Lillie D. Shockney is Administrative Director of John Hopkins Breast Clinical Program and John Hopkins Cancer Survivorship Programs in Baltimore, Maryland, an Avon Foundation Center of Excellence. She is a 20-year breast cancer survivor.

Makes 4 servings

Prep Time: 15 minutes • Baking Time: 40-50 minutes

4 slices lightly buttered bread of your choice, cubed

2 cups milk

2 eggs

¼ cup sugar

¼ tsp. salt

½ cup raisins

½ tsp. vanilla

1. Butter a 2-quart baking dish.
   
2. Place bread cubes in baking dish.
   
3. In a mixing bowl, beat together milk, eggs, sugar, and salt.
   
4. Pour mixture over bread cubes.
   
5. Gently stir in raisins and vanilla.
   
6. Place baking dish into a larger baking pan filled with hot water to a depth of ¾ inch.
   
7. Bake at 350° for about 40 minutes, or until pudding is firm in the center.
   

“My husband is the main cook in our family. He and our daughter like to make this Bread Pudding. The recipe is my mother-in-law's, whom we lost to metastatic cancer.”

NURSE NAVIGATOR, AND A SURVIVOR

In our cancer center, we learn to know a patient well beyond her pathology. She may be a single parent with a nine-year-old child—and now she's just been diagnosed with breast cancer. So she's more to us than a medical fact.

She may not have transportation. She may not have money for a taxi. But we do. We must know our patients well so they don't choose a treatment plan based on their other needs.

A woman may say, “I want a mastectomy,” but she doesn't really. She chooses that because it's quicker and easier than a lumpectomy, with a series of radiation or chemo treatments. So we conduct a barrier assessment for each person who's been diagnosed to learn what may impact her ability to have the treatment she ought to have.