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 By encouraging your friend or family member to attend a Look Good…Feel Better group program, you help promote an important tool for coping. A recent study showed that only a small percentage of female patients knew about or attended any type of support program. Instead, patients said they relied on the advice of family and friends to deal with these concerns. So what can you do for a woman close to you who is experiencing the appearance-related side effects of cancer?
For more information on Look Good Feel Better, visit their web site at www.lookgoodfeelbetter.org.
Women of Heart
 To show my support for the International Pageant's platform, I contacted the Midwest affiliate of the Go Red organization. I started volunteering at several events mostly in the capacity of signing women up for Go Red and talking with women about the risk of heart disease.
It was at these events in casual talking that I kept hearing over and over that women with heart disease and heart attack survivors wished there was a support group that Go Red offered much like what the American Cancer Society offers for cancer patients and survivors. (IE. LGFB)
I asked the Go Red staff and was told that it was a dream of the organization to one day have such a program but at this time no one had come forwarded to think this out and create something.
So I did.
I contacted the necessary directors and suggested that they allow me to create a program in our affiliate that could be a pilot program. Borrowing from the belief of the LGFB program I created Women of Heart. This program is similar in that we bring together women in different stages of heart disease. We offer classes to improve their health from the inside out and we provide an environment that allows them to heal emotionally.
A makeover for the soul, is how I like to define both of these programs.
Cancer may have visual side effects that can affect a woman's attitude about her treatment and can cause depression and therefore delay her progress and recovery, the answer...LGFB.
Heart disease may not have visual side effects however the disease often causes women to become depressed and this may affect attitude about treatments and ultimately affect recovery too. The answer... Women of Heart.
At the Midwest affiliate location in St. Louis is where this program will be a "best practice" model and it is the hope of the Midwest affiliate that it will grow into a national program. I have been invited to be on the board of volunteers and play a vital role in the growth of this program since it was my idea and my initiative to start. We kick off later this month with our first session.
I want to convey that although my focus is promoting the LGFB program, I have taken what I have experienced as a cancer survivor and turned it around to bring awareness and create healing and wellness to another group of women too.
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