Just five days left until the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure. I’ll be walking the 1K next Saturday morning and I need to be on site by 6:30 in the morning. Part of my preparation is walking 1K every other day this week and riding my stationary bike for 45 minutes on the alternating days. Since the walk takes place outdoors with more than 10,000 participants, I’ll be alternating the incline to imitate walking up and down hills as well as the uneven feeling of pavement under the feet.
The 1K is not a huge distance to walk, but I’m taking my five year old along for the walk and the plan is to just go and do our best. If we manage to raise some money, that’s more icing on the cake – my daughter asked me why I wanted to go for this long walk and I told her it’s to help people. I’d like to see the treatments for breast cancer so improved that by the time it might be a problem for my daughter – that we won’t be racing for the cure anymore – we’ll be celebrating the cure.
We have cancer on my side of the family. My grandmother had uterine cancer. She endured a full hysterectomy along with radiation and chemotherapy in 1971. Treatment for cancer has come a long, long way in the last 35 years – my lifetime. That’s why I want to race for the cure.
When my daughter asked me what cancer was, I told her it was when cells go a little nuts and grow out of control. It can affect just about every part of the body. Breast cancer is an intensely feminine cancer – because it occurs in a part of our body that is wholly related to our sexuality and our being as a woman. She doesn’t understand that yet – she just knows that it’s bad – and that it can take a lot of treatment to make them better.
So this Saturday, I’m racing for the cure – and I’m going to race for the cure every chance I get. Someday, I want to see my daughter telling her daughters that we celebrate the cure – because we found a cure – we found a treatment that makes survival rates so high – that it’s actually an anomaly to die from breast cancer. We’ve come a long way baby and we’ve got a ways to go before she can tell that story.
So if you’d like to support the race for the cure, visit here and pledge what you can. Just five days to go – I can’t wait to tell you about my day – racing for the cure.
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