Woman who lost her stomach to cancer lights up 35 Monuments to raise awareness. Image by Daniel Paquette (with permission).
Teresa Tiano was living a relatively normal life until she lost her stomach to cancer a decade ago. Tiano, keen to promote awareness about stomach cancer, started a stomach cancer foundation called ‘My Gut Feeling’.
On November 30th, 2022, the Canadian woman is lighting up 35 monuments and city halls in Canada, U.S. and several European countries to the colour of periwinkle blue to raise awareness of stomach cancer. This date is the day she convinced Health Canada to officially call it the annual Stomach Cancer Awareness Day.
The historical monuments that will be bathed in blue include the Leaning Tower of Pisa and five other Italian monuments; plus, Las Vegas City Hall, Niagara Falls (from both sides), the CN Tower, Montreal Olympic Park Tower, Ottawa sign, Calgary Tower, Victoria’s Parliament.
This is matched by a social media campaign under the banner of ‘The Power of Periwinkle’. The aim is to encourage “ambassadors” to take pictures of sites and to share these on their platforms.
Describing the lighting up of key buildings worldwide and the reason behind it, Tiano says (in a statement to Digital Journal): “One of the things we focus on, is hope and to see the light through even the darkest of times. We have the Stomach Cancer Star Fundraising Campaign.”
She adds: “For years, I have seen places light up for Breast Cancer Awareness Month (I used to work for Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation) and other health and humane causes. We wanted to raise awareness, because honestly so few people know about or have even heard of stomach cancer.”
By selecting periwinkle blue, Tiano hopes this will prompt people to ask ‘why?’ and ‘what’s going on?’, which in turn will raise awareness and trigger discussions around stomach cancer.
As part of her campaign to raise awareness about stomach cancer, Tiano also undertakes outreach work, suggesting tips for a healthier stomach. She encourages people to talk to their doctor about symptoms and family cancer history.
Tiano sees this form of health promotion as especially important since more younger people are getting stomach cancer in their teens and 20s.
Prior to the illuminations, on Saturday Nov 26th, her foundation is organizing a conference in Canada. The aim is to bring together oncologists, patients, a dietitian, psychiatrist, gynaecologist and survivors together to chat about new treatments, research and care. This is the sixth year that Tiano has run the event.
As well as those attending, the conference is available as a free live cast for anyone who is interested.
Woman who lost her stomach to cancer lights up 35 monuments in blue to raise awareness - Digital Journal
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