Channel 7 Health and Fitness Expo

On Sunday, June 13, I had the opportunity to attend the Channel 7 Health and Fitness Expo. Brooke Bibeault, Miss Massachusetts Teen USA joined me to attend the session by Tedy Bruschi, former New England Patriot Superbowl Champion who is also a Stroke Survivor. I was very interested to hear Tedy speak about his journey after suffering a stroke, especially since the Mrs. International platform is the Go Red for Women Campaign with the American Heart Association with one of the major health risks being stroke along with heart disease. It was wonderful to hear Tedy speak and then have the audience ask questions and make comments. There were a few people that got the opportunity to thank him for giving them hope to be able to bounce back to normalcy in life as they themselves were stroke survivors and were going through the same issues of vision loss, coordination, and various other symptoms from suffering a stroke. Tedy then signed some autographs, and gave the opportunity to 20 lucky kids to throw around a football with him. Brooke and I then walked around the floors of the Hynes Convention Center and were so touched by all the fans we had asking us to take pictures with them and sign autographs. One of the rewarding things of being Mrs. Massachusetts is to be able to be there for children as a role model, especially since I am now a mom, I know how much this means to parents. I then headed to the New England Coalition for Cancer Survivorship booth which is an organization I have partnered with. Before I got there, I came across the booth for Remember Beads (http://www.rememberbeads.com/), which was so touching as the start of this company was inspired by a woman who was a breast cancer patient. The story is amazing, and I will be sharing it with you in a post all of its own. This was an afternoon that was one of the highlights of my reign with all the people that I met and the stories that continue to inspire me when it comes to cancer survivors.