Todd and I have been talking about doing the Breast Cancer 3-Day for a couple of years now. Last year I knew three women who did the walk in three different cities, our own favorite, Gretchen, being one of them, and they gave me the courage to go all the way. So on Saturday Todd and I signed up to do the Breast Cancer 3-Day in October. That would be 60 miles of walking over a period of three days. That would be approximately 20 miles of walking a day. Of walking. Twenty miles. In one day.
As if that’s not daunting enough, we also have to raise $2,300. Each. That would be $4,600 for both of us.
Friday night while we were just chillin‘ with the fam Todd looked at me and said something to the effect that $4,600 is a lot of money and it was up to me to decide whether we would do it or not. I told him we could make our choice after the meeting the next morning. But I realized I had already made my decision. I need to do this for so many reasons.
There is, of course, the big picture. 85% of the money raised goes directly to the Susan G. Komen Foundation and every advancement in breast cancer research, treatment, education and prevention in the last 25 years has been touched by a Komen for the Cure grant. This alone is worth the walk to me. The difference in breast cancer treatments between 25 years ago and when I was treated almost four years ago is staggering. While everybody wants a cure to end the disease for good, advancement in treatments are welcome by all who have to go through them.
In the last three years I have met more women who have the disease, so many of them young women with children still at home. Cancer isn’t fun at any age, but the side effects of treatment for a pre-menopausal woman can rob her of the normal aging process and causes early onset osteoporosis, arthritis, and a whole host of other issues usually reserved for older women. I don’t like it and I know these other young women don’t like it either. So again, I want to stop this disease in its tracks.
But I have a couple personal reasons, too. For one thing, it will help me get into better shape. It will force me to walk and walk and walk some more. It will also force Todd to walk and walk and walk some more and I’m looking forward to just hanging out with him without a TV or other distractions (like my computer).
Even more than that, though, is that I feel like I have to do this for my own self. I need this challenge. I’ve spent so much time as a patient or being limited in some way and it’s time to prove to myself that I am neither anymore.
Which brings me back to the fund raising portion. The whole point of doing this is to raise money to eradicate breast cancer. The 3Day website has some great tools, one of which is the ability to download your email contacts, edit one of their generic letters and send them all off. Todd, being a lets-do-this-thing-right-this-very-second-and-not-wait-another-second kind of guy sent out his emails Monday night. By Tuesday afternoon he had exceeded his goal thanks to some very generous friends!
He also dusted off his blog, Jenni and Me, wrote his post and made me all sniffly. One read of that post and you’ll see why I like him so very much.
I’m now at the part where I hit you up with my request. I ask for your prayers. Pray that I can raise the rest of my goal; pray that Todd and I will stick with our training regimen; pray that we walk the 60 miles with no blisters or any other maladies; pray for all the other walkers; and pray for a cure.
Of course, if you would like to help me reach my goal that would be great, too! You can click on the button at the bottom of this post and it will take you to a donation page. I’ll also put a button up on my side bar and just keep it up until the walk.
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