‘Hakuna Ma Tatas’ theme a hit at fourth annual Breastival

PALMER — For the fourth year, the ever-the-more popular Breastival was held at the Mat-Su Regional Medical Center on Saturday, and for the first time, it had an additional theme of “Hakuna Ma Tatas.”

Blended in with the music, food, games, costumes and raffles were presentations about a very serious topic. Valerie Clark, an advanced family nurse practitioner with Mat-Su Women’s Health Specialists, gave the keynote address, and focused on the importance of doing self-examinations and doing them correctly.

“My goal was to talk about prevention and early cancer screenings — what’s causing cancer and what you can do to reduce the risk,” Clark said. “We’re just having fun and music kind of brings up everyone’s spirits, relieves the anxiety a little bit.”

Clark was dressed up as Spider-man, while others donned the costumes of Wonder Woman, other super heroes, and still others wore pink wigs and pink clothing, all with the intent, of not making light of a very serious issue, but making people more comfortable talking about it.

“Breast cancer concerns are one of the most common concerns and one of the scariest issues women face, and yet a lot of women are unaware of how common breast cancer is,” Clark said. “I feel like here we can talk about how common it is, what the symptoms are.”

At the Mat-Su Women’s Health Specialists table, Clark and company focused on the particulars of doing proper breast exams with the help of rubber models and beanbags tagged to show the locations where cancers most commonly occur.

“A lot of women don’t check their breasts at all,” Clark said. “My goal is to relieve some of the anxieties to bring attention to what women need to bring to the attention of their providers.”

Valley Radiation Therapy has put on the event at the hospital the last four years, and Dr. Richard Chung said it’s been a four years that’s seen remarkable improvement in cancer diagnostics and treatment in the Mat-Su Valley.

“The diagnostic imaging is available here, the treatments are here, the surgery, the radiation are all available here in the Valley, so people don’t have to go Outside,” Chung said. “People have upgraded their capabilities. The hospital has added their mammography unit and we have replaced our linear accelerator. Chemotherapy has advanced, so you have more choices here in the Valley now.”

Chung said he hopes the colorful and light-hearted tone of the annual event will help people be more comfortable talking about breast cancer.

“Hopefully when people visit the booths they learn a little bit more about breast cancer and make it not such a scary thing,” he said. “We just to start talking about it more.”