EASLEY — Local Girl Scout Troop 2580 is channeling their founder, Juliette Low, to help cancer patients deal with the harsh effects of chemo therapy.
As part of the troop’s a “A year in the life of Juliette” badge, the girls made nearly 30 “chemo bags” to deliver to local survivors. The year-long badge program includes an October project for breast cancer awareness in honor of Low who passed from the disease in 1927.
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
The bags each consist of a headscarf, a bottle of hand sanitizer, hard candy, a granola bar and a note of encouragement written by the girls. It’s one of three service projects the troop is working on this year.
“We wanted to do something that honored Juliette and her fight (against cancer) but also that could help people here and now,” said Troop leader Jenny Chapman. “The October portion of this patch program seemed like a perfect fit.”
According to the Mayo Clinic, breast cancer is cancer that forms in the cells of the breasts. After skin cancer, it is the most common cancer diagnosed in women in the United States.
Breast cancer can occur in both men and women, but it’s far more common in women, they said.
Substantial support for breast cancer awareness and research funding has helped create advances in the diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer. Breast cancer survival rates have increased, and the number of deaths associated with this disease is steadily declining, largely due to factors such as earlier detection, a new personalized approach to treatment and a better understanding of the disease.
According to the Girl Scouts of America, Girl Scout founder Juliette Gordon Low developed breast cancer in 1923, but kept it a secret.
“She caught the flu after an operation to remove the malignant lumps, leaving her bed-ridden until February 1924,” records state. “When she recovered, she resumed her work with the American Girl Scouts and the International Council.”
Low secretly had two more operations to try to cure her breast cancer, but was informed in 1925 that she had about six months to live. She continued to do work for the Girl Scouts — even sneaking away during her recovery from surgery to make a speech at the Girl Scouts’ regional conference in Richmond.
Low traveled to Liverpool, where Dr. William Blair-Bell was developing a treatment for cancer. She tried his treatment, consisting of an intravenous solution of colloidal lead.
The treatment was (obviously) unsuccessful, and instead of finding herself on the road to recovery, she spent her 66th birthday fighting off lead poisoning.
She traveled back to the United States to meet with her doctor, who informed her that she did not have much longer to live. She went to the Low home in Savannah, where she spent her last few months.
Low died in Savannah on Jan. 17, 1927, at the age of 66.
An honor guard of Girl Scouts escorted her casket to her funeral at Christ Church the next day. 250 Girl Scouts left school early that day to attend her funeral and burial at Laurel Grove Cemetery. Gordon Low was buried in her Girl Scout uniform with a note in her pocket stating “You are not only the first Girl Scout, but the best Girl Scout of them all.”
Her tombstone reads, “Now abideth faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these is love.”
