LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- A Louisville mother facing breast cancer for the second time said she does not like Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and she's rallying dollars behind her mission to rethink pink.
On a typical bright afternoon in a small St. Matthew's studio, you'll find a team of women sorting, packing and shipping scarves. They are led by Lara MacGregor.
"The collection of scarves is donated by people all around the world, along with stories of all different types of cancer, and sent out to all different types of people facing cancer," MacGregor said.
Along with each cloth is a message of encouragement and strength passed from one cancer patient to another.
MacGregor founded the Hope Scarves nonprofit after a call in 2007 that changed her life.
"I was diagnosed with breast cancer when I was 30 years old and seven months pregnant with our second child," she said.
She endured a double mastectomy, reconstruction and chemotherapy. And though she's intimately familiar with the breast cancer struggle, MacGregor does not like October's traditional sea of pink.
She said people are already aware of breast cancer. What they need now are the tools to fight it.
"My personal goal this month is to turn October from Breast Cancer Awareness Month to Breast Cancer Research Month," she said. "And then I'd say paint everything pink if the pink is meaningful and that pink is helping advance research. Then I'm all for it. But pink just for the sake of selling products and helping companies turn a buck, it drives me crazy."
Breast cancer kills 113 every day.
"We are not funding research to the level that is changing outcomes for people with metastatic breast cancer," MacGregor said.
Advocates of Breast Cancer Awareness Month point out that the month has promoted early detection. Reports say breast cancer rates in the U.S. dropped nearly 40 percent over roughly 25 years.
Still, experts say 30 percent of breast cancer patients get the metastatic form of the disease, the kind considered fatal as it spreads to other parts of the body.
The effort to rethink pink is a personal campaign for MacGregor. Her cancer spread in 2014, and last week, she got some bad news.
"I had some scans that reveal that I had two new spots in my bones," she said.
She's putting money behind her message. On Friday, Hope Scarves hosts its annual Colors of Courage benefit. All proceeds go toward the Metastatic Breast Cancer Research Collective. Last year, the collective donated $500,000 toward the cause.
"I focus on living today, and so I make choices around how I live every day," she said.
As a mother of two who is fighting to save her own life, MacGregor said she has no time to waste.
"I think fear steals time", she said.
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