2016

Apr 21st 2016

Man: We caught up with Wellesley resident, Theresa Keresztes, president of My Girls™Skin Care, to talk about her product, training for the Boston Marathon, and how she plans to celebrate One Boston Day.

Interviewer: Tell us a little bit about who you are, what you're doing, and who you're raising money for.

Theresa: I'm Theresa Keresztes, and I'm the President of My Girls™Skin Care Cream, a cream made specifically for breast cancer patients, and it fights radiation-induced dermatitis. When you're going through repeated radiation treatments, the skin can break down and become very painful, and sometimes it can cause a break in treatment. The cream is very important in keeping the skin intact, and it's now recommended in U.S. hospitals and by the Cleveland Clinic conducted among breast cancer patients that was completed just last November.

And this year, Boston Marathon is my first marathon, and I will run for Susan G. Komen of Southern New England in support of their partnership with CancerCare, which is a national program for medically under-served women. There are lots of women out there fighting breast cancer, and they don't have adequate health coverage. You add in a 3D mammogram, $1,000 MRI, it gets pretty expensive, not to mention increasingly high premiums, the cost of chemotherapy, wigs, it gets really expensive. So I'm running in support of those women out there that are fighting breast cancer and don't have adequate health coverage.

Interviewer: So this is your first marathon, tell us a little bit about what the training has been like for you this year.

Theresa: The training has been a lot of fun. I've always pushed it off. It was on my bucket list to do a marathon, but always family, work got in the way. But I'm so happy that I did it, and I have a posse of ladies out there that we run with, sometimes fellows too, and we laugh and we joke, all along the way. And I have to say it's been a real pleasure. You wake up in the morning sometimes, you've got a huge to-do list, but you get out there and you get your training run in, and then the rest of the day is just so much better.

Interviewer: Women going through breast cancer treatments have a lot of training and experiences they have to go through. How do you compare your training for the marathon to the obstacles and challenges faced by women who are actually undergoing breast cancer, and treatment for breast cancer?

Theresa: Well, I can say, personally, when I went through treatment, it was really important for me to get out there and run every single day, even when I wasn't that up to it, just because it gets those endorphins going and makes you feel much better, even if you have to fake it a little bit that first mile. It's a similar struggle when you are going through all the tests and taking all the meds, and going to all the appointments. It's almost like a marathon in itself, you know what the finish line is and have to just keep going.

Interviewer: So what are you expecting when you cross the marathon finish line?

Theresa: I was really looking forward to one of those metallic capes, but I hear they don't give those out anymore. But I'm looking forward to a beer, actually I hope it's a cold one, and I'm looking forward to really celebrating that I was able to accomplish it, and I'm hoping I raise a good amount of money for this cause. In fact, I hope I can continue to raise a good amount of money for this because I think that our health care system is a little bit broken, and there's a lot of people that slip through the cracks. And so I'm going to try to make a difference.

Interviewer: Theresa, a couple more things you wanted to add?

Theresa: Sure, One Boston Day is a new tradition that was established by Mayor Walsh, and it's a day to memorialize and honor those that were involved with the Boston Marathon bombings on April 15, 2013. So next Friday is a day for people to do good and try to erase all that negativity that happened, and help people heal. And so what My Girls Cream is doing is we're teaming up with Susan G. Komen Southern New England, and we're visiting cancer treatment centers in Massachusetts and a few other areas in the country, and we're giving away cream to people who are going through treatment and sometimes suffer burns from the radiation therapy treatments.

And you can get on the OneBostonDay.com site, and you can also say what you might do good on that day, and they will retweet what you're going to do. And the mayor's office may even reach out to you and ask you for a little more information.

Thank you for the opportunity to spread the news for people undergoing treatment.