Moore Regional’s Cancer Survivors Day Scheduled for June 2
| Date Posted: 5/14/2013
PINEHURST – Organizers of 2013 National Cancer Survivors Day events hope that each survivor, relative, friend or cancer care provider who participates in the day’s activities will leave feeling like a “star” after the day of celebration. The focus will be on them and on their role in cancer survivorship.
Those attending the June 2 event hosted by the cancer care staff at FirstHealth Moore Regional Hospital will have the opportunity to put their fingerprint on a “Fingerprint Tree of Life” that will be placed in the hospital’s Community Hospital Comprehensive Cancer Center.
“It will symbolize their survivorship, of living and flourishing,” says Margie Thomas, clinical director of Moore Regional’s Radiation Oncology department and chair of the hospital’s National Cancer Survivors Day Committee.
If they like, participating survivors can choose a color for their fingerprint that represents their diagnosed cancer such as pink for breast cancer, light blue for prostate cancer and green for lymphoma. After rolling a finger across the appropriately colored ink pad, participants will press their finger somewhere on the sketched outline of a tree and then put their name and length of survivorship on their “leaf.”
The completed “Fingerprint Tree of Life” will be framed before its Cancer Center display.
The 2013 Cancer Survivors Day program will be held from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Fair Barn on Highway 5 in Pinehurst. The afternoon of free activities will include entertainment, interactive trivia games, educational sessions, a photo booth, face painting, chair massages and games for children.
There will also be samples provided by Rita’s Italian Ice and box lunches from The Lunchbox that Rocks.
This year, three mini presentations on healthy activities (super foods, how to do a 10-minute workout and chair yoga) will be offered for guests. Each participant will get a card that will be punched at each healthy activity. The names of those who participate in all three will be placed in a drawing for a grand prize from Southern Supreme.
National Cancer Survivors Day is a worldwide celebration of life that is held annually on the first Sunday in June in hundreds of communities throughout the United States, Canada and other participating countries. Participants unite in a symbolic event to show the world that life after a cancer diagnosis can be meaningful and productive. The National Cancer Survivors Day Foundation defines a “survivor” as anyone living with a history of cancer – from the moment of diagnosis through the remainder of life.
“On Cancer Survivors Day, we celebrate our patients’ survivorship over cancer,” says Thomas. “Cancer survivors face each day with courage and dignity, and we want them to know that they serve as an inspiration to us all.”
FirstHealth Moore Regional Hospital’s National Cancer Survivors Day celebration is free and open to cancer survivors, their families and friends, and to the physicians and other health-care personnel who treat cancer patients. For more information about attending or for directions, call (800) 213-3284 toll-free.
