Our First Champion

Carol Trippe became Pretty In Pink Foundation’s first Champion in 2006. While Carol passed away in 2010, her daughter, Caroline, shared her story with us.

She explains the type of person her mom was to their family. “My mom was someone who was always helping everybody else. She was a stay-at-home mom the whole time I was growing up. At the time she was diagnosed, she and my dad had been divorced for about 9 years. She had relocated to Raleigh to help me take care of my kids, because I had a chronically ill husband.”

But things took a turn when Carol was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2006. “Mom was convinced by the time she told us that she was telling us that not only did she have breast cancer, but that she didn’t have money for treatment and she was going to die. She was convinced that there was not going to be help for her. And even though we were saying that we’ll figure it out and we’ll do this–  we didn’t know what we were going to do.”

But then Pretty In Pink was there to help.

“It was very overwhelming, because then we had hope again. I remember Mom, she was seated, but it was almost like she collapsed back with relief, because she was already struggling with financial security. She made it every month, but she was living off of retirement and didn’t have health insurance. She was doing the best she could but she was really struggling and she was trying to be there for me and my family…for all of us.”

Looking back on her mother’s fight with breast cancer, Caroline is thankful for Dr. Tolnitch and Pretty In Pink.

“We wouldn’t of had those 4 years without Dr. Tolnitch’s vision and understand that this was a need. I think that’s probably my biggest gratitude is that she saw that there was a need and made something happen.”

Hear more from Caroline below.