SHREWSBURY – Over the past month, first responders across the country have donned pink patches in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month as part of the Pink Patch Project.
“You can talk to any one of our guys in our department, and you’ll see that everybody knows somebody and has a story,” Shrewsbury Detective Lawrence Napolitano said.
Napolitano helps organize Pink Patch Project events.
Started in California, the Pink Patch Project is a campaign designed to bring awareness to breast cancer, according to its website. It includes over 750 agencies, including the Shrewsbury Police Department.
In Shrewsbury, the department sells patches, keychains and hats to raise money for DetecTogether, which is a nonprofit education and advocacy organization located in Westborough that informs people of early cancer detection, according to its website.
The department usually donates between $3,000 and $5,000 to the organization each year.
Officer Timothy Charland’s story
For one Shrewsbury officer, this work hits close to home.
Officer Timothy Charland’s colon cancer symptoms began when he was 21 years old, but he ignored them, until he began dating his wife, who is an operating room nurse, at age 26.
“She said, ‘This is not normal,’” Charland said.
Doctors ordered that Charland undergo a sigmoidoscopy, which is a test that examines the lower part of the colon.
“I just remember the look on the doctor’s face,” Charland said.
Upon further investigation, he said doctors discovered two large precancerous tumors and 16 polyps during a colonoscopy.
A doctor told Charland that he was his youngest patient with cancer yet.
“It was all caught early” and surgery was able to completely remove the masses, according to Charland.
However, that didn’t end Charland’s battle with cancer.
Three years later, while Charland’s doctor was examining his neck during a routine physical, the doctor noticed that his lymph nodes were swollen.
The doctor ordered biopsies of the inflamed lymph nodes, which led to the discovery of three stage 2 tumors in Charland’s thyroid that had spread throughout his lymph nodes.
In order to remove the tumors in his thyroid, Charland had his entire thyroid taken out.
Because the thyroid is responsible for regulating the body’s hormones, Charland said he now must take medication to balance his hormones, but it causes a “constant weight and mood battle.”
“It’s [taking the medication] something I don’t wish upon my worst enemy,” he said.
Though he survived, Charland said his father, who was diagnosed with brain and lung cancer around the time he was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, did not.
“Talk about a world of hell for my mother,” he said.
Since he had his thyroid removed, Charland said he has been cancer free.
“It’s been ten years and I’m still knocking on wood,” Charland said.
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