Mindy Starr-Pfahler poses with her breast cancer-themed pumpkin during Damariscotta Pumpkinfest on Oct. 11. Starr-Pfahler, who works at Sheepscot River Pottery in Edgecomb, is a longtime pumpkin artist for the annual festival. (Bisi Cameron Yee photo)
The Damariscotta-based “Fight Like A Girl” team topped the fundraising leader board for the American Cancer Society’s annual breast cancer walk in Portland on Sunday, Oct 19.
Led by Nobleboro resident Mindy Starr-Pfahler, who is currently in her final rounds of radiation following a breast cancer diagnosis, the 19-member team raised $14,460, more than 10% of the event’s total donations.
“I’m totally embracing the pink,” said Starr-Pfahler who arrived at Fort Williams Park in Portland decked out in the signature shade with a bouquet of pink pinwheels, a roll of pink ribbon stickers, and a bag of pink “Fight Like A Girl” wristbands she passed out to everyone she saw.
She pulled out all the stops when it came to preparing for the walk, ordering a slew of pink tutus and custom-made pink Wonder Woman capes for team members. Teammates bedazzled superhero face masks, donned pink ribbon earrings, and applied glittery ribbon-shaped tattoos.
“We’re going to pirouette with our tutus,” said friend and teammate Char Corbett.
Starr-Pfahler wasn’t sure she could actually complete the 1.25-mile walk, which happened to be scheduled during her final week of radiation, but her teammates were determined to help her cross the finish line.
Surrounded by friends and family Starr-Pfahler walked under the inflatable pink arch that framed the iconic Portland Head Light with her arm raised in triumph.
“I just pushed the whole way,” she said.
That same drive is how she approached the fundraising aspect of the walk. Calling herself competitive “from birth,” Starr-Pfahler dedicated herself to achieving the team’s donation goals, raising the bar each time a goal was reached.
“It’s not a competition but it is a competition,” she said about collecting the most money out of all 46 teams who participated in the Portland walk.
But it’s not just fundraising that awakened Starr-Pfahler’s competitive spirit.
“I’m not going to let this beat me,” she said of her disease. “No way! Cancer picked the wrong girl.”
‘A circle of support’
Starr-Pfahler and husband John are longtime patrons of King Eider’s Pub in Damariscotta, with a standing reservation at booth No. 41 every Monday evening. That booth was where Starr-Pfahler first went public, sharing her diagnosis with friends Char and Jim Corbett, of Bremen.
“We were pretty stunned,” Char Corbett said. “Mindy and I had our exams the same day… And then I came out clean and she didn’t and it didn’t seem fair.”
Following Starr-Pfahler’s decision to join the walk, the pub made a Sept. 2 Facebook post to its 12,000 followers.
“Breast cancer has thrown one of our beloved Eider Ducks, Mindy, on a rollercoaster ride … But if you know Mindy, you know she meets it all with positivity, humor, and light,” the post said.
The post went on to announce that King Eider’s would sponsor Starr-Pfahler’s entire team “in her honor and in support of everyone touched by this disease” and encouraged the community to become involved by “walking, donating, or simply sending love and encouragement. Together, we make strides.”
A follow-up post on Oct. 17 reported that King Eider’s made a $710 donation to Starr-Pfahler’s team and ended by saying “Hey cancer … Duck off!”
“Eider’s is the epicenter of the whole support system,” said John Pfahler.
Eider’s may be the hub, but what John Pfahler called his wife’s “circle of support” extends much further.
From close friends in Lincoln County, to family members in New Jersey, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania, to a niece in Copenhagen, Denmark who walked in solidarity, the Fight Like A Girl team grew, as did the donations.
One team member posted online that if she raised $500 she would attend the race in an inflatable unicorn costume. She became arguably the most-popular team member at the walk, giving unicorn hugs and dancing with awestruck children.
“I think we don’t realize when we go through life how many lives we touch,” John Pfahler said of his wife during a post-walk lunch at King Eider’s. “And when it hits the fan, good people come to help. And those good people were here for her today.”
‘I never found a lump’
“Mindy has been very public about her diagnosis,” said Char Corbett of her friend’s decision to talk openly about her cancer. “And that’s about her wanting to save other lives and have impact – community impact.”
Starr-Pfahler was diagnosed in April of this year, had her first surgery in May, her second in June, and her third in July.
“They made things happen fast,” she said of her medical team at Lincoln Hospital’s Miles Campus in Damariscotta and Maine Medical Center in Portland. “I went for a regular mammogram, a scheduled mammogram and didn’t expect anything … I never found a lump. Even my surgeon never found a lump, it was so deep and embedded.”
She got a call after she got home that day asking her to return for another mammogram. The radiologist reviewed her second mammogram in the moment and immediately scheduled a biopsy.
“I mean it was like bam-bam-bam. It was really, really fast. And at that point, I still was like, ‘It’s nothing, right? Like it’s nothing,’” Starr-Pfahler said.
She went for the biopsy “and I’m expecting it to be a cyst,” she said. “And he looks at me and he goes, ‘This is no cyst.’”
Next was a sit-down with a member of the care team at Lincoln Hospital’s Miles Campus in Damariscotta.
“She goes ‘How do you feel about this?’ And I go, ‘I’m very confused,’” Starr-Pfahler said. “I still had no clue what it really meant. And she says, ‘You have a mass.’ And that’s when I went, ‘Oh, well, you know, but it’s probably fine, right?’ And she goes, ‘No.’”
When the final biopsy results came in they confirmed that Starr-Pfahler had stage three breast cancer.
Within two weeks of her diagnosis a set of magnets was surgically inserted to help pinpoint the cancerous area and Starr-Pfahler had her first lumpectomy. However, pathology reports indicated that the surgery did not get all the cancer cells. A second lumpectomy still failed to clear the margins.
“It was what they considered ‘stardust,’” Starr-Pfahler said. “It was scattered cells. And out of five lymph nodes, I had three that were positive, but they were scattered too.”
After a series of phone calls between what Starr-Pfahler called “the whole cancer board of New England,” she was scheduled for a double mastectomy.
The pathology report came back clean this time, but the margins were slim so Starr-Pfahler was scheduled for five days of radiation every week for five weeks.
“You get what they call mapped and they pinpoint exactly where you need your radiation,” she said. “So it’s not going near my heart. It’s not going near my lungs … And radiation is just this big machine. You lay down and you put your arms above your head and it just circles you. And has all kinds of lasers and you just feel like you’re in a sci-fi movie.”
After she completes her radiation treatments, Starr-Pfahler will be on a three-year course of oral chemotherapy followed by five years of hormone therapy.
Fighting back
While she said she was elated to have the radiation, to be doing everything possible to combat the disease, for Starr-Pfahler the anxiety that “survivors always have in the back of their heads” is still there.
“You try to push it off and you try to do other things but it creeps up on you every once in a while and you’re like ‘Dang!’ I don’t want to go through this again, you know? This was a lot. I don’t want to do it again and I don’t want anybody else to have to do it – hence the walk.”
The Making Strides walk was important for Starr-Pfahler’s friends and family too. It gave them all a common goal, a purpose.
“It gives us something positive to focus on,” said Char Corbett.
That positive energy is the key to Starr-Pfahler’s approach to both her diagnosis and treatment
“Wrap your arms around things that can make you feel positive,” she said “Hang out with positive people. Do stuff that gets you out of your own head. If you don’t have positive energy, it’s a deep hole that you can get into mentally. Find that crack in the darkness that shines through. And be part of that light.”
As of Monday morning, Oct. 20, the greater Portland arm of the American Cancer Society Making Strides Against Breast Cancer walk has raised $102,615 for breast cancer research, well over this year’s goal of $86,700.
According to the American Cancer Society, breast cancer is the second most common cancer in women, accounting for one in three of all cancer diagnoses annually. Current statistics indicate that about 316,950 new cases of invasive breast cancer will be diagnosed in 2025 and about 42,170 women will die from the disease. There are currently more than 4 million breast cancer survivors in the United States.
For more information about breast cancer, go to cancer.org/cancer/types/breast-cancer.html.
To make a donation to the Fight Like A Girl team, go to tinyurl.com/mr23ye9a. The donation portal is open until Jan. 31, 2026.
(Bisi Cameron Yee is a freelance photojournalist based in Nobleboro. To contact her, email cameronyeephotography@gmail.com.)
Mindy Starr-Pfahler (front) and the Fight Like A Girl team walk under the inflatable pink Making Strides Against Breast Cancer arch in Portland on Sunday, Oct. 19. The Portland Head Light provided a picturesque backdrop for the walk. (Bisi Cameron Yee photo)
