From staff reports
PELHAM — The Hewitt-Trussville varsity baseball team will compete Saturday, Feb. 28 in a three-way matchup to raise awareness for ovarian cancer.
Pelham, Oak Mountain and Hewitt-Trussville will play games starting at 11 a.m. at Pelham High School.
The Huskies are tentatively scheduled to face Oak Mountain at 1:15 p.m. and Pelham at 3:30 p.m.
Instead of traditional team colors, the field will be accented in teal, and the teams and fans will be wearing teal — the color for ovarian cancer awareness — in honor of Tammy Anderson, wife of Pelham baseball coach Sean Anderson. She is currently receiving chemotherapy treatments for Stage 2 ovarian cancer. Tammy Anderson’s mother lost her battle with Stage 4 ovarian cancer several years ago, while Hewitt-Trussville head coach Jeff Mauldin was the head coach at Pelham.
Donations made during the awareness and fundraising event will benefit the Laura Crandall Brown Ovarian Cancer Foundation to help fund research for development of early detection tests and raise awareness of symptoms.
In addition to raising funds for research for early detection, Tammy Anderson hopes to increase awareness about ovarian cancer’s signs and symptoms. She asked for assistance from her CanSurvive GYN Cancer Support Group, which is now a program of the Laura Crandall Brown Ovarian Cancer Foundation. It will provide literature and teal arm bands to the first 150 fans and will be accepting donations to be used for awareness campaigns, patient support, and research grants. Donations may be made at www.thinkoflaura.org.
Ovarian cancer is most treatable when found early. With only 27 percent of women with Stage 4 ovarian cancer living five or more years, it’s critical for it to be found early. Even though routine pap smears can detect cancer in the cervix, currently there’s no early screening test specifically for ovarian cancer. If an ovarian cancer mass is large enough, it can be detected by a gynecologist during a yearly exam. However, as in Tammy Anderson’s case, the mass is often not large enough to be detected at the time of the exam, but instead it causes symptoms that should cause a woman to seek immediate medical attention. Research for an early detection test is ongoing, but until a reliable one is found, women should be aware of the signs and symptoms.
Signs of ovarian cancer include bloating, eating and filling quicker than normal, abdominal pain, trouble urinating, abnormal bleeding, back pain, and a change in bowel habits.
A woman’s lifetime risk for developing invasive ovarian cancer is 1 in 75. Ovarian cancer is the 11th-most common women’s cancer but it is the fifth leading cause of cancer-related deaths among women and the deadliest of the GYN cancers.
“Together we can make a difference; help us improve these statistics for future generations,” Tammy Anderson said in an email.