Photo by Derek Redd Neighborhood Ford Store once again will host a Quilt For The Cure station at the Ohio County Country Fair. Pictured from left, Zeta Tau Alpha member Shelby Cascioli, Fair President Justin Miller, Fort Henry Peacemaker member Penny Klug, Zeta Tau Alpha member Victoria Wehrberger and Mike DeArdo of Neighborhood Ford Store.

Neighborhood Ford Store and Quilt for the Cure will be in its normal spot at Oglebay Park Resort this weekend, decked in pink at the Ohio County Country Fair to spread the message of breast cancer awareness. Yet this year, part of that message has a more specific target, as the groups want younger people to understand that breast cancer can affect them, too.

Neighborhood Ford Store and Quilt for a Cure once again will offer the opportunity for visitors to make squares for quilts that will be hung up at cancer centers throughout the region.

The squares will include positive, inspirational messages for cancer patients in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Locally, the Fort Henry Peacemakers will craft the quilts.

“These quilts serve almost a therapeutic purpose,” said Nancy Lewis of Neighborhood Ford Store. “When you’re waiting (in a cancer center) for something that maybe you’re nervous about, to see something that’s that beautiful, that’s the purpose of Quilt for the Cure.

Dr. Tina Bhatnagar is an associate professor of medicine in the Department of Hematology and Medical Oncology for the WVU Cancer Institute based at WVU Medicine Wheeling Hospital. She said events like the one Neighborhood Ford Store puts together each year for Breast Cancer Awareness Month are crucial in helping people feel comfortable with discussing the disease and getting it checked out if they’re afraid they may have breast cancer.

“People feel like they’re in a comfortable environment, a comfortable and safe setting where information is being offered that can really benefit them,” she said. “And the first step in detecting breast cancer is awareness.

“We see so many people who are not aware of how common breast cancer is,” she continued. “They’re not aware of the symptoms or what to do or how to screen. So when you raise awareness like this, it empowers people.”

Lewis said raising awareness about breast cancer in younger people was particularly important this year after she read some sobering statistics from the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. Among the foundation’s findings was that young women — those under age 40 — are more likely to have aggressive forms of the disease.

Rates of metastatic breast cancer in women under 40 have risen 3.5% each year between 2004 and 2017. Also, younger patients are more likely to have genetic risk factors for breast cancer.

“I think that, sometimes, they just don’t think about it,” Lewis said of younger women. “Or they think, ‘I’m too young for that.’ But we’re hoping young women who hear this message will tell other young women.”

Bhatnagar agreed that breast cancer diagnoses in younger women has been one of “the more alarming trends” in medicine seen over the last few years. Doctors are starting to see breast cancer in people as young as their 20s. It’s a phenomenon the medical community is still trying to figure out, but in the meantime, younger women should be aware of the possibility.

Those concerned about possibly having breast cancer should talk to their primary care physician or gynecologist, Bhatnagar said. Those physicians will be able to get them connected with the right facilities to get further examinations. And self-examinations once a month are recommended to check for any lumps in the breasts or under the arms.

“We do see a lot of women who don’t feel anything in their breast and are ultimately diagnosed with breast cancer,” Bhatnagar said. “But there are definitely quite a few people out there who have made that finding themselves.”

Quilt for the Cure – with help from Neighborhood Ford Store and Zeta Tau Alpha – will be at the Ohio County Country Fair, located between the Good Zoo and the Levenson Shelter at Oglebay Park Resort, throughout the weekend.