Bend cancer patient, pancake mix-maker raising awareness, funds for Sarcoma and Bone Cancer Awareness Month

BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) -- July is national Sarcoma and Bone Cancer Awareness Month, and a Bend woman who's a sarcoma patient talked with us about her experience and raising awareness about the rare disease, while also finding a tasty way to raise funds to help fight it.

"Sarcoma cancer is basically tumors of the smooth tissue. And more specifically, leiomyosarcoma is tumors of the muscle tissue," said Cass Muchmore, founder of the Soapy Dough.

The rare sarcoma cancer accounts for 1% of adult cancer and 15-20% of childhood cancer in the United States.

""Sarcomas are kind of a little different," Muchmore said. "They can be formed anywhere on the body, actually. You can have it in your arms, your bones, your anywhere. The most common is uterine sarcoma and leiomyosarcoma. And a lot of times it starts with like fibroids in your abdomen and pelvis area. So females tend to get it a little more."

 With the disease being so rare, there weren’t many local options to turn to.

"So for me, there's no doctors," Muchmore said. "There are no sarcoma specialists in Central Oregon. I travel to Seattle. My current doctor is in California. You really have to seek treatment. So you have to advocate for yourself."

Which for Cass also was creating food -- specifically a pancake mix batter!

"I went down the path of being more healthy and wanting to eat clean and organic," she said. "And that was what I can do for myself to stay strong for all of the treatments, basically."

Some three years later, she now has bigger plans.

 "I want to be able to share with people more, so that whole - the advocacy, the second opinions, the insurance vs. dealing with the doctors and the authorizations when they're denied, and just there's so much fight to be done, and there's a lot of the behind-the-scenes stuff that helps," Muchmore said.

 She’s doing just that, by creating a sarcoma fundraiser.

Muchmore said that on Wednesday, "I will be at the Bend Farmers Market, selling my pancake batter. And I plan to donate a percentage of my profits, as well as do kind of a 'fill the jar,' where 100% of proceeds go to LMS fundraising."

One of the most important messages Muchmore wanted to relate was to just take it day by day, slow down and enjoy your days that you are here.