In the fall of 2009, Heather Jones, an alumni of Sinclair, was diagnosed with cervical cancer.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was watching The Price is Right <\/em>and then a commercial for a research study came on offering free pap smears to women who would come and get one,\u201d Jones said.\u00a0 \u201cWell, I didn\u2019t have an excuse not to go because it was free and it ended up saving my life.\u201d<\/p>\n After a series of on-going testing, Jones got a call from her oncologist.<\/p>\n \u201cI had to brace myself because I knew there was going to be bad news,\u201d she said. \u201cBut the hardest part was getting the courage to tell my family and friends that there was a possibility of bad news without them knowing.\u201d<\/p>\n Right after the quarter ended, she had a hysterectomy in which her ovaries were removed and in January, she underwent radiation and Chemotherapy.<\/p>\n She is now in remission.<\/p>\n A year later, she has organized an awareness fundraiser to be held at Blind Bob\u2019s in the Oregon District on Saturday, Jan. 29, called Rock Your Ribbon 2011. The event will start at 10 p.m. There will be an entrance fee of $5 and all proceeds will be donated to the National Cervical Cancer Coalition and the Noble Circle Project.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it is important to raise awareness because the topic is so taboo,\u201d Jones said. \u201cWomen need to be aware because it affects them, but mainly because there is a stigma associated with cervical cancer, but how can women know how to prevent cervical cancer, if they don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n Something she said she hopes will change after the event.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat was really eye opening to me was that even my own mom and I hadn\u2019t felt comfortable enough to talk about it.\u201d\u00a0 Jones said. \u201cAnd that tells me that there are other girls and women just like us.<\/p>\n According to healthywomen.org, \u201cHuman Papillomavirus (HPV) is a virus that often causes no symptoms but can cause cervical cancer. It is estimated that 20 million Americans have the disease but are unaware because HPV is a silent infection.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I was diagnosed, people kept asking me, did you feel different? I didn\u2019t,\u201d she said.\u00a0 \u201cThere were no symptoms to indicate that I was even sick. And that is the scary part.\u201d<\/p>\n While the Rock your Ribbon 2011 fundraiser is primarily for cervical cancer awareness, Jones said any woman who has ever had cancer can attend.<\/p>\n \u201cThis event is to raise awareness for those who don\u2019t know what HPV or cervical cancer is and to provide emotional support for women,\u201d she said. \u201cSo that women won\u2019t be afraid to talk about it and it won\u2019t be something that is just discussed behind closed doors.\u201d<\/p>\n Now that she is in remission, she said courage has made her want to talk to other women about her ordeal because she doesn\u2019t want other women \u201cto have to go through what she did.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFind a doctor you can trust, get the regular check-ups, get the Pap test,\u201d she said. \u201cBecause in the end it is worth it and it may save your life.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the fall of 2009, Heather Jones, an alumni of Sinclair, was diagnosed with cervical cancer. \u201cI was watching The Price is Right and then a commercial for a research study came on offering free pap smears to women who would come and get one,\u201d Jones said.\u00a0 \u201cWell, I didn\u2019t have an excuse not to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tartan-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5s3vR-1xS","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5944"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5944\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5960,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5944\/revisions\/5960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}