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Breast cancer warrior women Golf champ speaks at event on awareness

Monday, October 27, 2003

By Julia M. Scott
Journal staff writer

After losing a 28-year-old friend to breast cancer, Val Skinner, a
six-time winner on the LPGA tour, vowed to use her golf clubs to
educate young women about the risks they face.

Speaking yesterday afternoon at Bayonne Medical Center's second annual
"Tea for Tomorrow," Skinner said doctors believed her friend, a
promising young golfer named Heather Farr, was too young to have
breast cancer.
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She was misdiagnosed at age 24, and six months later when she found
out she had breast cancer it was too late, said Skinner, who gave the
keynote speech at yesterday's event, held at the Liberty House
Restaurant in Jersey City.

A crowd of 400 women gathered in honor of National Breast Cancer
Awareness Month. The second-floor banquet hall of the waterfront
restaurant was dotted with pink flowers, napkins, and ribbons.

"We're talking a lot about survivors," Bayonne Medical Center
physician and trustee Deborah Wozniak told the crowd of women. "I
prefer to use the term warrior."

One in eight women will get breast cancer in their lifetime, Wozniak
said. But by 2010, one in four will get the disease, she said, urging
the group to get a mammography once a year, to do regular self-exams,
and to lead a healthy lifestyle.

"She was something, she was really special," Skinner said, her voice
breaking.

Each year, LPGA's annual LIFE fund-raiser raises a-half million
dollars to educate women in their 20s and 30s about breast cancer.

Wozniak said young women "don't have much probability" of getting
breast cancer, but when they do, "it's more severe."

"We as women have to make time to take care of ourselves," Bayonne
Schools Superintendent Patricia McGeehan said. McGeehan is a trustee
of the hospital.

"People should be aware to get checked and to know what to look for,"
said Bayonne resident Brenda Krinsky.

Krinsky had an 8-month-old baby when she was diagnosed with breast
cancer. But after a few months in the hospital and a bone marrow
transplant, Krinsky's cancer went into remission.

"When I meet other people, I know my problem is not as bad," said
Pearl Grimes, who has been a survivor for 10 years and constantly
looks for information to pass on to her three daughters.

Prizes were raffled at yesterday's event, including gift certificates
for a mammography and bone density test at Bayonne Medical Center, a
pink Kitchen Aid mixer, a Royal Doulton tea set, and gift baskets.

Three large pink teddy bears, made by Skinner's Young Women's
Initiative, were also given away as raffle prizes. Each had a little
note attached explaining how the bear got its name, as well as
directions on how women can gives themselves a breast examination.

As Stephanie Giblin, senior vice president of patient care services at
Bayonne Medical Center, presented Skinner with a silver-colored award
in the shape of the breast cancer ribbon and a large bouquet of
flowers, tears streamed down Skinner's face. The crowd gave her a
standing ovation.