Susan G. Komen Race For A Cure; Sacramento

564,000 Americans die from it each year; approximately 1,500 each day. That means that every minute that we get to continue living there is someone in the country dying including children, mothers, fathers, grandmas, and grandpas, because of this one thing that went wrong. A single cell that has mutated into an ever expansive mindless spreading and expanding machine, cancer. It is safe to say that cancer is an undesirable disease that we all hope no one we love has to deal with; unfortunately, it is prevalent and without a cure.

Last Saturday, May 12, was the Susan G. Komen race for a Cure in Sacramento, California where over 20,000 friends, family, and survivors came together to honor those that have passed and to celebrate the lives of the survivors.

I was honored to be one of the 20,000 there able to celebrate the life of my aunt who is in her third year now of being cancer free. I was able to run in the 5k race wearing her name across my back.

I think we all too often see and hear the commercials about those that have and are still suffering in the battle against cancer and let it go in one ear and out the other. But it is a completely different experience to talk to and interact with those that have been through the battles; hair loss, pain, tests of every kind, hospital stays, and the agony of not knowing what will happen if they pass, to their families, their children, their mothers and fathers, siblings, how will they make things work without them and will they?

Cancer is a struggle that can only be understood when looked at through the eyes of a survivor. Imagine a world where no one would have to endure that hardship; imagine a world with a cure for cancer.