Event allows fun, fashion, awareness to share stage / The News-Enterprise

“I had never had a mammogram, never had anything, because I wasn’t 40,” she said.

Hay, who was one of the models in Hardin Memorial Health’s annual Purses, Pumps and Prevention fashion show Thursday evening, said the idea that something could be wrong with her arose when she felt a knot on her breast. She said she immediately went to see Dr. Shannon Holt in Elizabethtown.

Within a week, Hay was starting chemo treatment.

In April 2018, Hay had a double mastectomy, followed by 26 rounds of radiation. She anticipates having her reconstruction surgery completed this summer.

Hay said she felt honored to be asked to be a part of Purses, Pumps and Prevention. Hay said she was asked to participate last year, but she had just undergone surgery seven days prior to the event.

Hay said she thinks Purses, Pumps and Prevention is good because it raises awareness.

Hay encouraged people to get their mammograms done. She said even people who are younger than 40 need to be aware.

“It can really happen younger,” she said.

Hay said she was grateful to be able to complete all her treatment in Elizabethtown.

The fashion show was just one portion of the fourth annual social event hosted by Hardin Memorial Health and the Hardin Memorial Health Foundation. It also featured a dinner, marketplace and dessert bar.

Proceeds from the event will go toward helping HMH purchase prosthetic breast form samples and a display, allowing breast cancer patients to be fitted and cared for close to home, HMH Chief Mar­keting and Development Officer Tracee Troutt said.

In previous years, the money raised through the event went toward HMH’s cancer resource center and Paxman cooking caps.