Why I walk...

Dear Friends and Family,

Currently breast cancer is the leading cause of death among women worldwide. While this is a sad reality, the situation is improving daily, in part due to organizations such as Susan G. Komen. Since its inception, the Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure has raised nearly $500 million to help pay for vital global breast cancer research and local community programs supporting education, screening and treatment. This year, as I celebrate my 29th birthday, I will walk for the second time, pledging to raise $2,300 and walk a total of 60 miles to help eradicate breast cancer.

Most of you know my inspiration for participating in this amazing event. It’s been over seven years since my mother was diagnosed with and survived breast cancer. It’s an interesting thing when your parent becomes sick and you assume a more parental role in life. I drove her to six months of chemotherapy treatments that left her sick and weak. I cut her hair short when it started to fall out. I safety proofed our home for someone with a weakened immune system. Through all of this I watched as my mother proved time and again that she was the strong one in our family, demonstrating courage, determination and a sense of grace with each new situation. I was there to help care for her during the tough times, but I was also there to see her strength and to be inspired by her survival. I witnessed firsthand, all that medicine and science can do to ensure that a cancer diagnosis is not fatal, and that a daughter still has her mother.

Every year medicine and science make incredible strides in the fight against breast cancer. When my Mother was diagnosed with cancer it had been thirty years since her mother, my grandmother was diagnosed with the same disease. In the seventies a breast cancer diagnosis almost certainly meant a full mastectomy. In the twenty-first century cancer is caught early, treated quickly with less evasive surgeries and followed up with a personally devised combination of chemotherapy, radiation, and other medicines. Today for women diagnosed with breast cancer early, the five-year survival rate is 98%, making it one of the most survivable cancers. Despite this great progress in the time if takes you to read this letter another woman will receive a breast cancer diagnosis, and in the next 90 minutes 34 women will be told they have breast cancer. Together we can continue this progress so that one day NO women will ever be told they have breast cancer.

The progress that we have made towards eradicating breast cancer would not have been possible without the generous help of millions of people just like you. After working in development and fundraising, I know firsthand just how much impact we can all have on the world when we each give what we can. It is with this knowledge that I am not only raising funds as a walker in the 2010 3- Day for the Cure, but also continuing my annual donation to my local Susan G. Komen office and donating to my own 3-Day fund to help me reach my goal. I know that my donation, when joined with thousands of others in San Diego is truly making an impact in the fight against breast cancer.

Please help me reach my goal by following the link to my personal donation website. As I prepare to walk 60 miles to demonstrate how important it is to me that we find a cure for breast cancer, I need your help.

Take a walk with me to help eradicate breast cancer.

Many thanks and much love,

Lyndsey