For the 11th year in a row, the Athens-Limestone Hospital Foundation has used the Pink Elephant Luncheon to raise money to fight breast cancer at the local level.

The Foundation seeks to raise awareness about the disease, which is said to affect 1 in 8 women during their lifetime, and to honor breast cancer patients and survivors.

The luncheon, which was held Wednesday at the Limestone County Event Center, helps fund mammogram scholarships and improved breast cancer detection technology, such as the hospital’s recently installed 4-D tomography unit.

According to Dr. Paul Fry, a longtime radiologist at Athens-Limestone Hospital, “in regular mammography, you do an X-ray top to bottom and side to side, but with tomography, it’s like a 4-second acquisition that scrolls through the breast which allows us to look at the images closely and see inside the breast.”

He added the improved technology has an improved accuracy and detection rate. Greater accuracy means less women are called back for a second mammogram, which Fry said reduces anxiety in his patients and, in the long run, saves insurance companies money.

Currently, Fry said the advanced 4D imaging is covered by many but not all insurances. The hospital, however, offers patients who are not covered a reduced out-of-pocket rate of $60 for the test.

Fry said the the new unit brings Athens-Limestone Hospital up to par with diagnostic facilities in Huntsville and Madison County.

“We don’t want women to think they have to travel to get the care they need,” he said. “They can get the same quality of treatment and care right here in Athens.”

“What we are trying to do is pick up these real small breast cancers that are the size of a marble or even a jawbreaker because research shows that in Stage 1 or 2 they are 100-percent curable,” Fry said.

Given the importance of early detection, the luncheon also helps fund the Athens-Limestone Hospital Foundation’s scholarship program, which provides mammograms for uninsured and underinsured Limestone County women.

Jan Lenz, who was the chief nursing officer at the hospital before retiring, was the keynote speaker at the Wednesday event. In the fall of 2016 while preparing for a mission trip to Thailand, Lenz started noticing changes in her breasts. Religious about performing self-examinations, Lenz discovered a lump deep in her breast when she raised her right arm.

A subsequent mammogram and biopsy revealed the lump was cancerous. Fry, her longtime friend and colleague, was the one who gave her the unwelcome news.

“That was a terrible word for me,” she said “I still shake when I think about that day. In that moment, I thought about chemo, surgery, disfigurement and pain.”

She also thought about her upcoming mission trip to Thailand.

Torn between undergoing surgery right away or keeping her commitment, Lenz said she turned to God and her husband Charlie for answers.

“The cancer had not happened overnight, and the cure wouldn’t, either,” she said. “It would be here when I got home, so off I went to Thailand. I can only say that there is one word that explains why I did what I did, and that word is God.”

After returning from Thailand, Lenz opted for a lumpectomy as opposed to a mastectomy as part of her treatment. With the lumpectomy, only a portion or “lump” of breast tissue is surgically removed. A mastectomy removes one or both breasts.

“I listened to a lot of folks about how to treat the cancer,” she said. “I decided that, considering the stage my cancer was in, a lumpectomy was the right decision for me.”

She also decided to forego chemotherapy after a genomic test revealed her type of cancer had a low recurrence rate.

Learning to use her diagnosis as a platform to encourage other women to do monthly self breast examinations, Lenz said she plans to spend her retirement serving the Lord both at home and abroad.