The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Sun’s awareness event hits home for area cancer survivors
UNCASVILLE — The thirdlargest home crowd of the season made their way inside Mohegan Sun Arena on a rainy Sunday afternoon with many of the 7,687 spectators wearing at least one item with the color pink in honor of the Connecticut Sun’s second and final game of the season honoring breast cancer survivors and promoting breast cancer awareness.
The day’s festivities were especially poignant to the 20 or so cancer survivors from the New Haven and Bridgeport areas who made the trip to witness the Connecticut Sun’s 82-75 win over Chicago.
The money raised from online auctions over the last two Sundays will be donated to the Norma Pfriem Breast Center. While many of those putting in bids for the jerseys and other items may not fully comprehend the scope of the work done at center’s the three locations in Fairfield County, Hamden’s Linda Greengas and Bridgeport’s Melissa Arsenault were among the breast cancer survivors who can provide firsthand details of the life-saving work being done at Norma Pfriem Breast Centers.
“It is like a second home to you so the money going there makes me ecstatic because it is going back to help people like me,” said the 39-year-old Arsenault, who has been cancer free since 2015. “It is great bringing awareness to breast cancer.”
Sunday was Arsenault’s first Connecticut Sun Game and also the first time she stepped inside the Mohegan Sun Casino. She did not feel like a stranger thanks to the fellow breast cancer survivors.
“Our journeys, our struggles (are the same), we are survivors,” Arsenault said.
While Arsenault was making her debut inside Mohegan Sun Arena, Greengas has been a regular at Sun home games since the
team moving from Orlando to Connecticut beginning with the 2003 season.
Greengas and her husband Herb witnessed the star-studded Sun teams featuring Nykesha Sales, Lindsay Whalen, Katie Douglas, Taj McWilliams-Franklin and Asjha Jones make back to back appearances in the WNBA Championship Series in 2004 and 2005. They were there when UConn legend Tina Charles was crowned as the WNBA Most Valuable Player in 2012. Sadly, her husband passed away in 2016 but Linda still makes the journey to watch the current Sun stars continue to pursuit of the franchise’s first WNBA title.
The 74-year-old Greengas wasn’t diagnosed with cancer until about a week after her husband’s death. Greengas worked for the State of Connecticut’s Department of Public Health so she was educated more about the warning signs and symptoms than a typical breast cancer patient. However, being so involved in the day to day care of her husband, who had prostate cancer and ultimately passed away due to Parkinson’s disease, delayed her own diagnosis.
The 1-2 punch of her husband’s death and her own cancer diagnosis might have been too much for somebody else to handle, Greengas had six reasons to keep on fighting namely her six adult children.
“You didn’t have time to mourn and I think that what got me through this is I wouldn’t do that to my kids,” Greengas said. “They just lost their dad and they are not going to lose their mom so I fought it with every part of my being and the helped me through it.”
Greengas knows that events like the ones run by the Connecticut Sun will help save more lives and if she could offer any advice it would be for women and men to listen to what their bodies are telling them.
“I think the more we raise awareness in women that you should do breast health exams, if you find something that is wrong go see that second person,” Greengas said. “If you still don’t get that answer and still think something is wrong, you know your body, seek out somebody else.”
The autographed and signed pink jersey worn by Sun guard Jasmine Thomas, whose mother is a cancer survivor, led the way among the fundraising items as the winning bid was $593 as about $4,000 was raised. Among the other items put up for bid is for ball kid duties and also the opportunity to watch the Sun warm up from the team bench for the final three home games including Tuesday’s game against the Dallas Wings, a game when Connecticut Sun legend Taj McWilliams-Franklin will make her debut as the interim head coach of the Wings.