Three Degree Guarantee: TurningPoint Breast Cancer Rehabilitation

SANDY SPRINGS, Ga. (Atlanta News First) - Each month, Atlanta News First highlights an organization doing good in the community. The amount of money we donate depends on the accuracy of our First Alert Weather Team. The donation is then matched by our partners at CoolRay. This month, we are highlighting the work of TurningPoint Breast Cancer Rehabilitation. The organization provides a helping and encouraging hand after treatments and surgeries create roadblocks for so many.

Cancer doesn’t choose its people. You can be 78 or much younger.

“I was diagnosed at 37. So I’d never had a mammogram before,” said Vanessa Gardynski, a breast cancer warrior.

Gardynski found a lump. After all kinds of testing, her doctor confirmed it was breast cancer. She said she didn’t have cancer on either side of her family. She was shocked.

“I am a very positive. ‘Let’s get after it,’ right? What do we do now? Like, ‘let’s solve this,’ because this isn’t my whole story. Let’s do what we have to do get back to living life,” said Gardynski.

After treatments and surgeries, Gardynski was encouraged to go to TurningPoint Breast Cancer Rehabilitation in Sandy Springs.

“Coming here made me feel like everybody had the same thing or understood what I was going through. It changed who I was. I actually can’t even speak on their impact. I would be completely lost without TurningPoint,” said Gardynski.

The organization is a nonprofit. It works to improve the quality of life for breast cancer warriors. They do this through things like physical and massage therapy, counseling and group support.

“We were founded in 2003 by a two-time breast cancer survivor and physical therapist. The reason she founded our organization was as a breast cancer survivor, she found a void and could not find people to help her during her rehabilitation,” said Lois Rusco, executive director of TurningPoint Breast Cancer Rehabilitation. “We talk about breast cancer survivors as warriors on their journey. They have a lot that they are going to run into, it is a difficult diagnosis and a lot of people aren’t ready for that.”

There is something happening at TurningPoint that is more than exercise and support — it is a group of people who know the struggle, who know the fight, who know what it is like to write their own stories.

“It feels like coming home. It sounds weird, but at my age, most of my friends aren’t going through this,” said Gardynski.