Pink the Rink has special meaning for cancer survivor

It’s a hockey game. It’s a fun Saturday night. For breast cancer survivor Jamie Tasky, Pink the Rink is more. It’s a milestone.

When the Everett Silvertips host Pink the Rink during Saturday’s game against the Seattle Thunderbirds, Tasky will be at Comcast Arena. Now cancer-free, she remembers her first Pink the Rink in 2011.

“It was right after I had surgery, and one week before I started chemotherapy treatments,” the 42-year-old Stanwood woman said Tuesday.

She was just 40 when she was diagnosed with breast cancer in July 2011. She had two surgeries before undergoing 16 rounds of chemotherapy, which lasted until March 2012. That was followed by three months of radiation treatments.

Healthy today, Tasky is grateful for the expertise of her medical team at the Providence Comprehensive Breast Center, and also for help she had paying for it.

Pink the Rink, where breast cancer survivors are honored and hockey fans are encouraged to wear pink, is a fundraiser for the charitable Providence General Foundation. Proceeds provide free mammograms for Snohomish County women who lack insurance coverage or other means to pay for the tests.

This will be fifth year for the event put on by the Silvertips, along with the Safeway Foundation and the Comprehensive Breast Center.

Cheri Russum, a spokeswoman for Providence Regional Medical Center Everett, said some donations also support Citrine Health, a nonprofit agency that works in partnership with Providence to provide screenings and services.

The Safeway Foundation donates $50,000 annually to the cause, Russum said. Money donated at Safeway cash registers to fight breast cancer stays in our community.

Over the past four seasons, Pink the Rink has raised $225,000, which according to the Silvertips website “equates to 2,250 free mammograms for women in Snohomish County.”

“I look forward to Pink the Rink as a milestone of celebration with other survivors and family members,” Tasky said. “Without the generous donations from Safeway and the Silvertips, life-saving resources would not be available to women like me.”

She and her husband, Jeff Tasky, own Tasky’s Metric Cycle on Hewitt Avenue in Everett. Their shop sells off-road motorcycles. Jamie Tasky said she didn’t have insurance that covered mammograms when her doctor, during a physical, suggested she get one at age 40.

“It was something I almost put off,” she said. Tasky looked into making payments to The Everett Clinic and went ahead with that first mammogram, which cost more than $300.

When the test turned out to be anything but routine, she went to the Providence Comprehensive Breast Center. After a biopsy, and with her husband at her side, “they gave me the diagnosis,” Tasky said. It was stage 2 breast cancer.

Tasky said she had no family history of breast cancer. She was relieved later to learn she does not have the BRCA gene mutation that would put her at higher risk for ovarian cancer.

Russum said much of Tasky’s treatment was paid through a program administered by Citrine Health, which oversees state funds and helps enroll uninsured breast cancer patients in Medicaid coverage.

“If women are uninsured, they don’t have to go without treatments that save your life,” Tasky said.

She lost her hair, and wore wigs donated to patients being treated at the Providence Regional Cancer Partnership. Except for her surgeries and recoveries, Tasky said she didn’t miss a day of work.

“Jeff has had my back. He called me ‘Champ’ through my chemotherapy. No one even knew I was sick,” she said.

Tasky said she and her husband may be featured in a short program on the big screen at Saturday’s game. “My husband is saying, ‘Fathers, sons, brothers, tell the women in your life to go get those tests done.’ Early detection saves lives,” she said.

At their cycle shop, the couple sell pink-ribbon breast cancer awareness stickers. Tasky launched a fundraising drive through Facebook, and said she hopes to donate about $1,800 to the Providence Comprehensive Breast Center.

“I just had a clear diagnostic mammogram. When my next one in January comes out clear, I will graduate to yearly tests as opposed to the every-six-months regimen I have been on since 2011,” Tasky said. “I’m feeling full of energy and pretty darn good.”

Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460; jmuhlstein@heraldnet.com.

Pink the Rink

The Everett Silvertips play the Seattle Thunderbirds at 7:05 p.m. Saturday for Pink the Rink night at Everett’s Comcast Arena. The Silvertips will donate $5 for each ticket sold to the Providence General Foundation to provide free mammograms in Snohomish County. Tickets, $15 upper level or $20 lower level, at www.everettsilvertips.com/page/pinktherink

Talk to us

> Give us your news tips.

> Send us a letter to the editor.

> More Herald contact information.

More in Local News

A firefighter stands in silence before a panel bearing the names of L. John Regelbrugge and Kris Regelbrugge during the ten-year remembrance of the Oso landslide on Friday, March 22, 2024, at the Oso Landslide Memorial in Oso, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
‘Flood of emotions’ as Oso Landslide Memorial opens on 10th anniversary

Friends, family and first responders held a moment of silence at 10:37 a.m. at the new 2-acre memorial off Highway 530.

Julie Petersen poses for a photo with images of her sister Christina Jefferds and Jefferds’ grand daughter Sanoah Violet Huestis next to a memorial for Sanoah at her home on March 20, 2024 in Arlington, Washington. Peterson wears her sister’s favorite color and one of her bangles. (Annie Barker / The Herald)
‘It just all came down’: An oral history of the Oso mudslide

Ten years later, The Daily Herald spoke with dozens of people — first responders, family, survivors — touched by the deadliest slide in U.S. history.

Victims of the Oso mudslide on March 22, 2014. (Courtesy photos)
Remembering the 43 lives lost in the Oso mudslide

The slide wiped out a neighborhood along Highway 530 in 2014. “Even though you feel like you’re alone in your grief, you’re really not.”

Director Lucia Schmit, right, and Deputy Director Dara Salmon inside the Snohomish County Department of Emergency Management on Friday, March 8, 2024, in Everett, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
How Oso slide changed local emergency response ‘on virtually every level’

“In a decade, we have just really, really advanced,” through hard-earned lessons applied to the pandemic, floods and opioids.

Ron and Gail Thompson at their home on Monday, March 4, 2024 in Oso, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
In shadow of scarred Oso hillside, mudslide’s wounds still feel fresh

Locals reflected on living with grief and finding meaning in the wake of a catastrophe “nothing like you can ever imagine” in 2014.

The rezoned property, seen here from the Hillside Vista luxury development, is surrounded on two sides by modern neighborhoods Monday, March 25, 2024, in Lake Stevens, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
Despite petition, Lake Stevens OKs rezone for new 96-home development

The change faced resistance from some residents, who worried about the effects of more density in the neighborhood.

Rep. Suzan DelBene, left, introduces Xichitl Torres Small, center, Undersecretary for Rural Development with the U.S. Department of Agriculture during a talk at Thomas Family Farms on Monday, April 3, 2023, in Snohomish, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Under new federal program, Washingtonians can file taxes for free

At a press conference Wednesday, U.S. Rep. Suzan DelBene called the Direct File program safe, easy and secure.

Former Snohomish County sheriff’s deputy Jeremie Zeller appears in court for sentencing on multiple counts of misdemeanor theft Wednesday, March 27, 2024, at Snohomish County Superior Court in Everett, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
Ex-sheriff’s deputy sentenced to 1 week of jail time for hardware theft

Jeremie Zeller, 47, stole merchandise from Home Depot in south Everett, where he worked overtime as a security guard.

Everett
11 months later, Lake Stevens man charged in fatal Casino Road shooting

Malik Fulson is accused of shooting Joseph Haderlie to death in the parking lot at the Crystal Springs Apartments last April.

T.J. Peters testifies during the murder trial of Alan Dean at the Snohomish County Courthouse on Tuesday, March 26, 2024 in Everett, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Bothell cold case trial now in jury’s hands

In court this week, the ex-boyfriend of Melissa Lee denied any role in her death. The defendant, Alan Dean, didn’t testify.

A speed camera facing west along 220th Street Southwest on Tuesday, Nov. 21, 2023 in Edmonds, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
New Washington law will allow traffic cams on more city, county roads

The move, led by a Snohomish County Democrat, comes as roadway deaths in the state have hit historic highs.

Mrs. Hildenbrand runs through a spelling exercise with her first grade class on the classroom’s Boxlight interactive display board funded by a pervious tech levy on Tuesday, March 19, 2024 in Marysville, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Lakewood School District’s new levy pitch: This time, it won’t raise taxes

After two levies failed, the district went back to the drawing board, with one levy that would increase taxes and another that would not.

Support local journalism

If you value local news, make a gift now to support the trusted journalism you get in The Daily Herald. Donations processed in this system are not tax deductible.