Project OM events raise $370 for breast cancer

Alexandra “Alex” Eanes of Libby, who lost her sister, Alison Eanes Score, to inflammatory breast cancer at the age of 42, was recently inspired by a nationwide movement, Project OM, to hold events to raise money for breast cancer research and to create awareness of the disease.

Tyann Hermes, owner of Shaki Soul yoga studio in Troy, got on board at Eanes’ request by holding a yoga class on Saturday, May 13. All proceeds benefit the Susan G. Komen foundation.

“I hadn’t met Alex before,” Hermes said. “But she came to me and told me her story and asked me to help and it was like. ‘How could I say no?.’”

Project OM is a national fundraising campaign that combines yoga with breast cancer awareness. It aims to be “the yoga class of one million to battle breast cancer.”

The Shaki Soul yoga class wasn’t the only Project OM event Eanes helped organize over the weekend. Others were recess with Liz Whalen from Beyond Training, Power Step with Leslie from the Montana Athletic Club and Prana Vinyasa yoga with Emma Marie, whose class was held Sunday at Cabinet Mountain Brewery.

Together, the events raised $370, with Shakti Soul raising $165, Beyond Training raising $90 and yoga at the brewery raising $90. About 33 people attended the events.

Eanes has a local foundation, The Alison Eanes Score Foundation, which aims to encourage breast health in young women and provided funding for prizes during Lincoln County’s Project OM events.

“Literally the last thing my sister said to me as she was dying is, ‘You have to do something about this (young women dying of inflammatory breast cancer),’” Eanes said.

But although Eanes has made efforts in the past to educate about breast cancer at Libby High School, finding out about Project OM was the motivation she needed to return to fulfilling her sister’s legacy, and improve her health at the same time.

“By December last year I got in a really bad spot,” she said. “I was angry about my sister being gone and just stuck in that stage of grief. I was 200 pounds and miserable, just missing my sissy.”

Inspired by her sister’s yoga practice after her diagnosis, Eanes began in December with Youtube yoga videos, slowly working up to longer sessions. She also began writing down what she ate. She has since lost 40 pounds.

Yet despite Eanes’ growing confidence with Youtube yoga, she had not been to a yoga class since she attended with her sister in Seattle before her death in 2011.

“I got here (Hermes’ Saturday class) 40 minutes early because I thought I might throw up,” Eanes said. “Then I just cried through the whole thing.”

Still, Eanes said she would attend more classes and continue to use yoga to raise awareness of breast health.

As attendees chatted after the class at Shakti Soul, many had a story about breast cancer to tell. Shelley Anderson of Troy recalled being grateful to reach the age of 47 — the age when her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer — with no sign of cancer. Laura Sedler, of the Yaak, fought breast cancer twice, at ages 44 and 55. Hermes said her grandmother died of breast cancer, but that it wasn’t so talked about at the time.

Sedler laughed and said her grandson, then age four, had called her prosthetic breast after surgery “your pretend na na” and commented that it was “nice and squishy.”

Talking about cancer, Eanes said, can raise awareness and encourage breast health.

“This cause is near and dear to my heart, and to the hearts of many,” she said. “It’s been so awesome to see this collaboration happen and it couldn’t have come together without Tyann. She is an amazing woman.”

Symptoms for inflammatory breast cancer differ from other breast cancers, Eanes said.

“Symptoms can be red, itchy rashes in the breast area, there are usually no lumps because the cancer grows in sheets,” she said.

For more information, Eanes said to visit the Inflammatory Breast Cancer Research Foundation site at www.ibcresearch.org.

“They have great information available on the site,” she said. “Women can even register through the site to assist in diagnosis.”