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Discover the heartbeat of Juneau's cultural and community landscape with 'Capital Chat.' This series explores the vibrant world of the community, arts, and dynamic cultural and social events happening in Alaska's Capital City. Tune in to 'Capital Chat' for your essential guide to the pulse of our community, where every story is an adventure and every voice matters.
And now Capital Chat on KINY, where we connect you with Juneau and Southeast Alaska's community organizations only on KINY.
Speaker 2:Hey. Good morning. It's Sharon Gaitman here on Capital Chat. And with me today is Jess Gutzweiler. Good
Speaker 3:morning, Sharon. How are you? Nailed it.
Speaker 2:Oh, good. Because you're here from Southeast Radiation Oncology, and I just wanna get into this exciting event that you're all doing, and it's a month away.
Speaker 3:So Yeah.
Speaker 2:Let's get people marking their calendars now.
Speaker 3:Yes. Mark your calendar and come on down to Devil's Club. We're actually doing a super fun event on October 23 from five to 7PM where we're offering free PSA blood draws. So that is for prostate cancer screening for any man 40 and the beer's on me. So we're saying, come get your blood draw, and I'll pay for your first beer.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh. Oh, that's bar for my boys. Beer for my boys.
Speaker 3:And we'll let the imagination go wild when we say boys. That's you. We're trying to play on words here.
Speaker 2:And so any man in the community over 40.
Speaker 3:Correct. And I don't care if you have insurance. I don't care if you, if you do have insurance or if you don't, all guys are welcome. And we're really trying to... The whole concept behind this is removing barriers for screening.
Speaker 3:Us ladies, we're always talking about mammograms or going into the doctor. Our fellows aren't as good as that. And this is us trying to remove those barriers to make cancer screening easy and also hang a little carrot out there that might be tastes like an IPA or a stout or whatever they pick at Devil's Club.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, my daughter became a nurse a few years ago and was for a while, there was a young man in his very early 40s who had stage four because he didn't ever get tested. He didn't think it pertained to him. Do we see that here?
Speaker 3:Well, I think the big thing is is what we're trying to do is bring a baseline. So everybody should know, like, where they sit with their PSA. All the gentlemen should know. And and really another thing to bring up is if you've had prostate cancer, you still need to get screened. So maybe you had your prostate removed, you still need to be screened because we wanna make sure that, past cancer isn't spreading.
Speaker 3:So, this whole point of this is to have a baseline. So our good friends over at Bartlett and the Bartlett Foundation, they are going to do the, the labs, the blood draw. So Sam and his team at the lab are helping us. Melissa with the foundation has been so generous in this entire She's incredible. She is.
Speaker 3:She's a force to be reckoned with, and she's gonna be helping check-in people. And then it's just a simple poke, and the results will be in their portal or a letter will be sent out if it is higher than four point o. That's kind of the magic number for men. And then it's like we have to do watchful waiting to see if there's an increase or if that's kind of your baseline.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And, you know, as you were speaking, I thought maybe you should speak a little bit more about the Aurora Integrated Oncology Foundation. Sure. They're a big part of this community and we may not even know that.
Speaker 3:Right. Right. So we are the parent company for southeast radiation oncology center with doctor Wong and his team, his excellent team over there that have been in this community for over thirteen years. And what our foundation does is we uplift and empower our community partners and that, and down here, Cancer Connection is a close one of those that the reason we put it on October 23 is because their health forum is the next day. So we thought why why not piggyback that weekend with one of our great partners?
Speaker 3:But what we're doing is removing barriers for Alaskans and providing state of the art cancer care. So by removing barriers, it's hosting events like this that are helping, making screening a little bit more fun. Also, have a really cool patient support fund. Any newly diagnosed cancer patient can reach out if they need financial support with Aurora Integrated Oncology Foundation, and that information be... Can be found on our website.
Speaker 3:But really, we are just so lucky to work with the amazing partners in the community, Bartlett Foundation, Cancer Connect, and then our good friends, Alaska Mens Run. They haven't had a lot of presence down here in Southeast, but they are a group of prostate cancer survivors. So if we have any men that are like, I don't need that. I... I'm fine.
Speaker 3:They're gonna go talk to them about their journey. And one of my favorite volunteers there, he goes, don't be like Mark. I waited too long. I thought I was healthy. And now he's he's got stage four cancer that he's gonna probably battle for the rest of his life.
Speaker 2:Yeah. You know, I'm very involved with Cancer Connection. And I just say to people, there's no one race, religion, ethnicity that stands out. I mean, you're all... Something could happen in your family.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. Yeah. That's the one thing cancer does not discriminate at all. And we did see like during COVID, a lot of people put off screenings and then, that trickle down effect for us in radiation oncology was late stage diagnosis, which unfortunately can involve palliative care and even times terminal. And that's not what we want.
Speaker 3:We want to make sure that we're helping catch the cancer early. So, you know, women have all these fun mammogram parties and doing other things. Men aren't doing anything. So that's why we wanna do beer for my boys Yeah. And at devil's
Speaker 2:And I wanna point out that right here at KINY and all of our other space stations, we are one of the sponsors.
Speaker 3:Yeah. You guys came in so generously with our media sponsor, and we can't thank you enough because the big thing is getting word out about this. So we just had a beer for my boys in Sildonne at Kenai River brewing. We screened a 125 men in two hours.
Speaker 2:And that was Sildonne? Let's at least double it, Harry.
Speaker 3:I think so. I think so.
Speaker 2:At least.
Speaker 3:Right. And the population is here.
Speaker 2:And it's not a machine doing anything to you, gentlemen.
Speaker 3:It's just a easy blood draw.
Speaker 2:It's a blood draw. Oh, come on, guys.
Speaker 3:I mean down. Get a beer on me. Just give us a little bit of blood.
Speaker 2:And okay. I just want you to know we have about two minutes left. So anything else you wanna get out there?
Speaker 3:I think we just need to make sure everybody knows it's October 23, five to seven. And this is a message for maybe the ladies out there. Sometimes our guys drag their feet and they don't wanna do it. Bring them down. Bring bring them down kicking and screaming.
Speaker 3:They won't regret it because they're getting a tasty beer, and devil's club has been a great, host for us. They're so generous to be... We're gonna be downstairs in the tap room. So come on downstairs. Bartlett and the foundation and the lab there at Bartlett is helping us out.
Speaker 3:The gentleman from the men's run and then our staff with southeast radiation oncology center and Aurora integrated oncology.
Speaker 2:I love it, and I love devil's club. I'm so happy they're participating in this as well.
Speaker 3:And thank you guys for all your generous support. So the ads will be running, and, we really just wanna have a great turnout here in Juneau.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Well, we'll see you on the twenty third. Ladies, come with your men. You could buy a beer.
Speaker 3:That's right.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Just come with them and get them in there. I wanna thank you for coming here, Jess. I wanna thank you all for listening. Drive safely.
Speaker 2:Keep your lights on.
Speaker 1:You've been listening to Capital Chat on KINY, your connection to the people and organizations making a difference in Juneau in Southeast Alaska. Subscribe to the Capital Chat podcast everywhere you listen to your favorite podcasts and at kinyradio.com.